If there be characters and scenes that seem drawn with too bright a pencil, the reader will consider that, after all, there are many worse sins than a disposition to think and speak well of one's neighbors. Following the great success of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe made three tours to England and Europe, which inspired Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, a two-volume work. The books are a series of letters, some written on the spot, some after the author's return home, of impressions as they arose, of her most agreeable visits to England, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium during the first half of the 19th century. They are truly what its name denotes, "Sunny Memories." HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811-1896) was an American writer best known for her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which helped frame slavery as a moral issue. Born in Connecticut, this daughter of a Congregationalist minister later moved to Cincinnati where she married, began writing, and had seven children. All told, Stowe wrote more than two-dozen books, both fiction and non-fiction.