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American Notes for General Circulation
In American Notes Dickens recorded his reactions to the most exciting social experiment of his day.
The New World had caught the English imagination, and its democratic promise had become such a hotly disputed issue that Dickens, who went to America in 1842, was only the most celebrated of many travellers curious to find out what was happening there.
Here he discusses everything from the comically uncomfortable sea voyage to American schools and prisons, character and table manners. On the whole he disliked what he saw, and wrote so frankly about it that American Notes was deplored by the New York Herald as 'the essence of balderdash...reduced to the last drop of silliness and inanity'. With hindsight, the Notes can be read as the account of a fascinating and traumatic adventure from which Dickens emerged, both emotionally and politically, a changed man.
The New World had caught the English imagination, and its democratic promise had become such a hotly disputed issue that Dickens, who went to America in 1842, was only the most celebrated of many travellers curious to find out what was happening there.
Here he discusses everything from the comically uncomfortable sea voyage to American schools and prisons, character and table manners. On the whole he disliked what he saw, and wrote so frankly about it that American Notes was deplored by the New York Herald as 'the essence of balderdash...reduced to the last drop of silliness and inanity'. With hindsight, the Notes can be read as the account of a fascinating and traumatic adventure from which Dickens emerged, both emotionally and politically, a changed man.
361 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1842
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About the author
Charles Dickens
12.8kbooks30.3kfollowersCharles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 169 reviews
August 7, 2020
Reread I reread this in anticipation of an upcoming reread of .
Dickens was a young man when he visited the U.S.A. the first time and much of American Notes is written in the spirit of a crusading journalist, which he was. He came to the U.S. loving the idea of it and ready to be wowed, but instead he couldn’t stomach the signs of slavery he saw, starting in Baltimore, and turned around before he even made it to the Deep South. But he’d seen enough to excoriate the U.S., including the “public opinion� he was told would ameliorate the harsh treatment of the slaves: He quotes from newspaper accounts to show there's no evidence of that.
The above leads to another topic still relevant in the U.S.: the use of gun (and knife) violence to settle even petty differences between angry men. He sets out several newspaper accounts he acquired during the time he was in America: a tip of an iceberg. Reading these today is sobering because one sees how prevalent and ingrained gun culture was, and thus is, in the U.S.
But what comes before his accounts of these more major issues are ongoing complaints, everywhere he goes, rendered sarcastically and causing me to laugh aloud, of the spitting of tobacco, the ignoring of omnipresent spittoons, as if the men can’t be bothered to use them even as the floor grows filthier. From my reading of Dickens’s biographies, I seem to remember Americans were more upset over this depiction than they were of the above issues.
After his second visit to America, some twenty-five years later, Dickens mellowed, saying there’d been changes in the country since his first visit, as well as in himself, enough to warrant a postscript in future editions saying so. He needn’t have done so. Party politics still rule over (mental) health facilities. Legal disputes still stop (educational) progress. Young white criminals are still treated differently than their black counterparts. Native Americans are still treated dishonestly. The rich are still considered more “virtuous� than the poor. Immigrants are still exploited. Racists still threaten the white-allies of blacks with violence and death, same as slave owners did to abolitionists.
Americans are notoriously thin-skinned when criticized by outsiders (or even insiders) and it’s likely, in his "old age," Dickens wanted to keep his American friends and ensure his books would still sell in the U.S. I don’t think Dickens walked back his comments about spitting, as he shouldn't have. Spitting in public still exists here. Don’t get me started on the young man I saw at a Houston brewery a few years ago and what he was doing with his chewing tobacco. I wasn't laughing.
Dickens was a young man when he visited the U.S.A. the first time and much of American Notes is written in the spirit of a crusading journalist, which he was. He came to the U.S. loving the idea of it and ready to be wowed, but instead he couldn’t stomach the signs of slavery he saw, starting in Baltimore, and turned around before he even made it to the Deep South. But he’d seen enough to excoriate the U.S., including the “public opinion� he was told would ameliorate the harsh treatment of the slaves: He quotes from newspaper accounts to show there's no evidence of that.
The above leads to another topic still relevant in the U.S.: the use of gun (and knife) violence to settle even petty differences between angry men. He sets out several newspaper accounts he acquired during the time he was in America: a tip of an iceberg. Reading these today is sobering because one sees how prevalent and ingrained gun culture was, and thus is, in the U.S.
But what comes before his accounts of these more major issues are ongoing complaints, everywhere he goes, rendered sarcastically and causing me to laugh aloud, of the spitting of tobacco, the ignoring of omnipresent spittoons, as if the men can’t be bothered to use them even as the floor grows filthier. From my reading of Dickens’s biographies, I seem to remember Americans were more upset over this depiction than they were of the above issues.
After his second visit to America, some twenty-five years later, Dickens mellowed, saying there’d been changes in the country since his first visit, as well as in himself, enough to warrant a postscript in future editions saying so. He needn’t have done so. Party politics still rule over (mental) health facilities. Legal disputes still stop (educational) progress. Young white criminals are still treated differently than their black counterparts. Native Americans are still treated dishonestly. The rich are still considered more “virtuous� than the poor. Immigrants are still exploited. Racists still threaten the white-allies of blacks with violence and death, same as slave owners did to abolitionists.
Americans are notoriously thin-skinned when criticized by outsiders (or even insiders) and it’s likely, in his "old age," Dickens wanted to keep his American friends and ensure his books would still sell in the U.S. I don’t think Dickens walked back his comments about spitting, as he shouldn't have. Spitting in public still exists here. Don’t get me started on the young man I saw at a Houston brewery a few years ago and what he was doing with his chewing tobacco. I wasn't laughing.
October 19, 2021
This is hard to rate as I read it more as a historical source than a work of literature but it was historically fascinating (as well as including some strong passages of Dickens's wonderful writing).
October 19, 2020
I have mentioned my having been in some uncertainty and doubt, at first, relative to the sleeping arrangements on board this boat. I remained in the same vague state of mind until ten o'clock or thereabouts, when going below, I found suspended on either side of the cabin, three long tiers of hanging bookshelves, designed apparently for volumes of the small octavo size. Looking with greater attention at these contrivances (wondering to find such literary preparations in such a place), I descried on each shelf a sort of microscopic sheet and blanket; then I began dimly to comprehend that the passengers were the library, and they were to be arranged, edge-wise, on these shelves, till morning.
This vignette of travel on a canal boat between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania displays Dickens's customary whimsical sense of humor in his account of a six-month visit to the United States in 1842. The humor tends to focus, as here, on the mechanics and conditions of the travel itself, and on the quirks and foibles of his travelling companions and others he encounters. For example, he is astonished at the universal practice among American men of chewing tobacco and yet near-universal abstinence of using spittoons, to great humorous effect.
He focuses his journalistic eye for detail on more serious subjects throughout, as well. He attacks slavery as poisoning the moral life of Americans, black and white alike, and calls out the hypocrisy of Southerners' arguments that public opinion moderated slave owners' treatment of their slaves, by listing a catalog of broken bones, whip marks, amputations, gunshot wounds, burns, brands, and more, taken from descriptions in their own newspaper ads for the return of runaways. He toured many American prisons, workhouses, and institutions for people with disabilities and found them generally superior to those of England.
I enjoyed this book, both for its window into a time in American history with which I'm not very familiar and for its insights into Dickens's life.
This vignette of travel on a canal boat between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania displays Dickens's customary whimsical sense of humor in his account of a six-month visit to the United States in 1842. The humor tends to focus, as here, on the mechanics and conditions of the travel itself, and on the quirks and foibles of his travelling companions and others he encounters. For example, he is astonished at the universal practice among American men of chewing tobacco and yet near-universal abstinence of using spittoons, to great humorous effect.
He focuses his journalistic eye for detail on more serious subjects throughout, as well. He attacks slavery as poisoning the moral life of Americans, black and white alike, and calls out the hypocrisy of Southerners' arguments that public opinion moderated slave owners' treatment of their slaves, by listing a catalog of broken bones, whip marks, amputations, gunshot wounds, burns, brands, and more, taken from descriptions in their own newspaper ads for the return of runaways. He toured many American prisons, workhouses, and institutions for people with disabilities and found them generally superior to those of England.
I enjoyed this book, both for its window into a time in American history with which I'm not very familiar and for its insights into Dickens's life.
January 17, 2019
Charles Dickens' American Notes for General Circulation, a travelogue of his trip around the U.S. and Canada from January through June 1842, was not well-received in the United States. Dickens' views of America and Americans were generally not unfair, in fact, many of his observations were right on target. He did not neglect the many positive aspects of American life and society, but Americans of his day, by British standards, were coarse, dirty, ill-mannered, too familiar with strangers, and often downright belligerent. Dickens was astounded at the propensity of Americans to resort to violence over the most minor occurrences, but he saved his keenest arrow to pierce slavery. He lambasted the hypocrisy of a nation which boasted loudly of republican principles while resting in large part on a foundation of human bondage. This view was not a formula for popularity. No people anywhere like the self-deception inherent in their proclaimed values to be pointed out too explicitly. Even though Dickens' criticisms often carried a heady whiff of English middle-class snootiness, to American readers they cut a little too close to the bone.
American Notes for General Circulation is worth reading as a sharp-eyed glimpse into the antebellum era in America by a savvy observer. It is good Three Star material.
American Notes for General Circulation is worth reading as a sharp-eyed glimpse into the antebellum era in America by a savvy observer. It is good Three Star material.
March 26, 2025
In 1842, Charles Dickens and his wife, Catherine, voyaged to the United States. The weather was stormy and cold so it was dangerous crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and most of the passengers were very seasick. He arrived in Boston and toured some of the New England and Mid-Atlantic states. The descriptions are unusual for a travel book because he spent a great deal of time looking at prisons, schools, mental hospitals, and mills. He wrote detailed, mostly positive descriptions about those institutions. Although we know from his letters that he was greeted in each city with welcoming dinners and tours since he was a world-famous author, very little mention is made of their hospitality. He seemed exhausted after all the uncomfortable traveling, especially when he went to see the prairie in the frontier of Ohio.
Dickens was used to the older country of England with established institutions and housing, and the British class system. It seemed surprising to him to find so many people living on the edge because they were new immigrants, or were homesteading in the forests or the prairies with no real support.
The highlight of his trip was Niagara Falls. He visited several cities in Canada, and the travel was easier by boat through the Great Lakes. Dickens also directed and acted in three short plays for charity while he stayed in Montreal. He seemed happier and more relaxed in Canada which was part of the British Empire at that time. Dickens and his wife had calmer seas for the return trip back to England.
The book has a section about slavery at the end. Dickens never went any further south than Virginia because slavery sickened him. He thought that tolerating slavery corrupted the character of a nation. He also held negative views of the press, and was disgusted by the habit of spitting chewing tobacco.
Dickens was not happy--with good reason--that the United States did not have an international copyright law. His books were pirated by anyone who wanted to print them. He had hoped to influence the government, but had little success.
The observant Dickens noticed little details, and some of his observations added humor to the account. It was interesting to see America through the eyes of someone who was traveling almost two centuries ago. Dickens, a social activist, was probably one of the few travelers who asked to see the prisons when he arrived in a city!
Dickens was used to the older country of England with established institutions and housing, and the British class system. It seemed surprising to him to find so many people living on the edge because they were new immigrants, or were homesteading in the forests or the prairies with no real support.
The highlight of his trip was Niagara Falls. He visited several cities in Canada, and the travel was easier by boat through the Great Lakes. Dickens also directed and acted in three short plays for charity while he stayed in Montreal. He seemed happier and more relaxed in Canada which was part of the British Empire at that time. Dickens and his wife had calmer seas for the return trip back to England.
The book has a section about slavery at the end. Dickens never went any further south than Virginia because slavery sickened him. He thought that tolerating slavery corrupted the character of a nation. He also held negative views of the press, and was disgusted by the habit of spitting chewing tobacco.
Dickens was not happy--with good reason--that the United States did not have an international copyright law. His books were pirated by anyone who wanted to print them. He had hoped to influence the government, but had little success.
The observant Dickens noticed little details, and some of his observations added humor to the account. It was interesting to see America through the eyes of someone who was traveling almost two centuries ago. Dickens, a social activist, was probably one of the few travelers who asked to see the prisons when he arrived in a city!
April 28, 2025
On 3rd January 1842 Charles Dickens, just a month away from his 30th birthday, started on his tour of America. Accompanied by his wife Catherine, her maid Anne Brown and nearly 80 others, he sailed from Liverpool on the steamship “RMS Britannica�, commissioned just two years earlier. Dickens already had 4 serial novels under his belt “The Pickwick Papers�, “Oliver Twist�, “Nicholas Nickleby�, and “The Old Curiosity Shop�, and was at the height of his popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. So why did he risk a 6 month pause in his writing, not to mention crossing the Atlantic at such an unseasonable time of year?
Many Europeans had made this risky journey, as travelogues were becoming increasingly popular. During 1815-1860 there were to be 200 such accounts of travels across the Atlantic. It was quite a temptation for the young Dickens, who was both well read and astute. He wanted to be in at the start; to “report back� himself. People in the Old Country were curious to discover just how far the settlers had progressed in creating a democratic republic, with room and equality for all. Some stressed the hardships settlers might have to face, methods of agriculture being of interest to those in England. Those with radical and reformist ideals like Dickens wanted to know just how successful America’s experiments in government, economics and law were proving to be. His focus and tone is markedly different from his “Pictures from Italy� four years later, where he wrote far more like a tourist.
However neither of these works is a straight travelogue. Try as he might, they come across as extremely subjective, and this of course is why they are so entertaining, and deserve to be far more widely read. The stamp of Dickens: the entertainment factor, the humour, the disproportionate time spent on minor details which interested him, the lack of patience with any cant or ceremony are all here in abundance.
Even the title itself is a joke. The work certainly is “notes� rather than a structured journal with dates; he skips to and fro when he feels diverted. The title can also be seen as a pun. American Notes for General Circulation could well be a joke at the expense of American currency. The end of the Second Bank of the United States and the ensuing worldwide financial panic of 1837 led to widespread bank failures, and rendered much paper currency worthless.
Dickens’s trip lasted for 6 months; he returned in June. For all that time his children had been at home in London, left with Dickens’s sister Fanny and the sculptor Angus Fletcher. Daniel Maclise made a sketch of them (which now hangs in the Doughty St. Museum) and Catherine loved it so much that she took it with her to Canada and America, and hung it on the wall of every place they stayed in. George Washington Putnam from Boston was soon hired as Dickens’s “faithful secretary� (although Catherine disliked him) and also stayed with them throughout the trip, writing his own record later.
Charles Dickens - Travels in America and Canada 1842 - with thanks to David Perdue’s Charles Dickens Page
So we embark on the journey, and Dickens’s excitement is palpable. In this first chapter we can feel the optimism and energy fizzling, as he describes the ridiculously cramped proportions of his “state room�, sleeping on bunks with a “very thin mattress, spread like a surgical plaster on a most inaccessible shelf�. Being Dickens he exaggerates for effect to the point of absurdity, with “portmanteaus which could now no more be got in at the door, not to say stowed away, than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a flower-pot�. However his optimism is infectious, so they all talk it up among themselves and persuade each other that it was actually a paradise of a cabin, and not a miniscule box of a room at all.
They consume the same menu for 3 weeks: boiled potatoes, roasted apples, and various meats, although the alcoholic drinks were plentiful! But after 3 weeks on board the steamship, suffering seasickness in some of the worst storms in living memory and only 3 days of calm seas, they were eager to arrive.
The Britannica approached the American continent by way of Nova Scotia amid terrifying weather, and ran aground at the capital, Halifax, where a crewman set off at 3 am in a rowing boat, uprooting a small tree to bring back to prove to the travellers that there was land close by! They were relieved to eventually set foot in the city of Boston, which delighted Dickens: “the air was so clear, the houses were so bright and gay � The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to impress all strangers very favourably.� In fact this remained his favourite city of the tour.
Whilst in Boston Dickens visited the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind and met Laura Bridgman, considered the first deaf-blind person to receive an education in English. Dickens was so impressed that he included the account of her progress from Dr Howe’s clinical notes almost verbatim. Chapter 3 is thus at least double the length of any other chapter. When Helen Keller’s parents read this account, they were inspired to seek an education for their own daughter from the teacher Annie Sullivan.
Dickens’s journey to Lowell, Massachusetts by railroad is a masterpiece of comic writing, as well as social comment. There was a male-only carriage plus a third carriage for unaccompanied women - and men - as long as they had a female companion with them. This was an improvement on the restrictions for respectable females in England, never being able to travel alone on a railway. However he hated the stuffy anthracite stoves everywhere, and was already noting the different conditions for black people: “As a black man never travels with a white one, there is also a negro car�, which segregation would be very shocking to his British readers. Dickens describes it as a “a great blundering clumsy chest such as Gulliver put to sea in, from the kingdom of Brobdingnag.� It could be that he uses such humour not only to deflect his horror, but also to exorcise it for the time being.
At Lowell he was very favourably impressed by the young factory women, who were mainly women and children from farming backgrounds. These were healthy, well-fed young women working happily in good conditions and educating themselves in their leisure time. They had access to libraries, a piano, and even wrote and printed a magazine of articles called “The Lowell Offering�. Dickens was greatly taken by this and read 400 pages.
He wrote a detailed account, comparing it with the appalling conditions for mill workers in Lancashire. Even 7 years later in 1848 Elizabeth Gaskell was to describe the utter poverty and suffering in industrial Manchester in “Mary Barton�.
Dickens was determined to investigate all the different sorts of institutions, and throughout spent a great deal of time looking at schools, prisons, factories and hospitals where friends such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had arranged visits for him. He also explored different churches, government institutions, legal systems and courts, and discussed philosophical theories and religions he came across.
In Hartford, Dickens visited the Insane Asylum and a State Prison, recording his positive interactions with the patients and inmates. He then headed to New York through The (Long Island) Sound on a small steamship; another comic part as it did not bear comparison with those in England. New York at that time was just the city: New York, New York. Dickens wrote a marvellously ambiguous satirical description about the “hogs of New York�: escaped pigs which had multiplied and were causing a real problem in the busy city.
Moving next to Philadelphia, Dickens’s description of the Eastern Penitentiary, a solitary confinement prison there is unforgettable. Whilst recognising that the intention of the management was sincere, and the conditions were clean, his horror of the concept is unmistakable. The many examples he records show us that very few people could cope mentally with such harsh deprivation.
Straightaway then, we see that Dickens dives into an analysis of social conditions and the plight of the disadvantaged, rather than just a tourist’s view, or zooming in on his own copyright problems. But with volume 2 (chapter 9) the tone changes.
Dickens continued South to Washington and met the President, although he politely declined a second meeting as he wanted to stick to his itinerary. Even here, he was revolted by the ever-present habit of spitting. Then followed a steamboat ride to Fredericksburg, before a railroad ride from Fredericksburg to Richmond.
This was the deepest downward dive, encountering slavery at first hand. Dickens described a harrowing scene: a slave woman with her children who had been sold, leaving behind a father and a husband. “The children cried the whole way and the mother was misery’s picture.� Describing this truly heart-rending episode, Dickens was shocked and disgusted to the core, abandoning his plans to explore the Southern States, as he dreaded what he would find.
For the only time, he changed his itinerary and travelled further West. He used steamboats more than the railroads, and his focus switched to be the land itself, concentrating more on the conditions of recent European emigrants to America, beginning with the journey from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati in a Western steamboat.
Dickens began to be weary and disillusioned, surrounded by travellers who were all so dogged and worn down, with so little sense of humour. Steamboat after steamboat followed, some trips as long as 12 hours to Louisville. But here a stranger requested to meet him: a Choctaw Indian named Pitchlynn. Dickens was excited to see someone in their native costume, and disappointed to meet a dignified man in a suit. Peter Pitchlynn was a famous Native American who became a tribal chief, well-respected for his education and diplomatic skills. He sorrowed at the demise of his people, but knew it was inevitable as both sides were entrenched. Dickens was most impressed with Pitchlynn’s wisdom.
The journey seemed interminable following the Mississippi. Perhaps the land they were trying to tame, cutting down dozens of trees which sank into the swamp, explained the migrants� numb exhaustion. He loathed Cairo, saving this up in his mind to satirise so savagely in “Martin Chuzzlewit�. There were brief respites such as meeting a gentle Kentucky giant.
Neither could he see why so much was made of the prairie at the frontier of Ohio. It was nothing compared with the scenery at home.
He backtracked towards Canada, visiting Toronto, Montreal and Quebec. His encounter with Niagara Falls was mesmeric; a profound spiritual experience for him; one which affected him all his life. “I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll and leap and roar and tumble all day long.� We see glimpses of this in his writing, with all his esoteric references to moving water.
Much as he enjoyed the Canadian part of his journey, Dickens was glad to see the coast of Ireland, and leave the sailing ship at Liverpool.
All the copious letters Dickens wrote to his friend John Forster formed the basis of American Notes, which he wrote a few months after he had returned home. However his American readers violently objected to his depictions. His journey also provided the inspiration for his next novel “Martin Chuzzlewit� but satirising the people and their practices inadvertently further irritated his American readers.
Eight years later, in his preface to the first cheap edition Dickens offered a sort of apologia:
“I have nothing to defend, or to explain away. The truth is the truth; and neither childish absurdities, nor unscrupulous contradictions, can make it otherwise. The earth would still move round the sun, though the whole Catholic Church said No �
I never have been otherwise than in favour of the United States. No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores, with a stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in America.�
Such approval was quite outspoken for a loyal subject of Queen Victoria. But the bad feeling against him in America was only finally quelled by his second visit: a reading tour in 1867-68, undertaken despite being advised against on health issues.
Another trigger for Dickens’s trip was the lack of copyright. From “The Pickwick Papers� onwards Dickens was plagued by pirate editions of his works, since there was no copyright law whatsoever in the United States at the time. Despite his furious objections, it was only getting worse, with bootleg works published freely. Dickens received many fan letters from his American readers, and realised that every single copy of his novels was sold there without him receiving a penny in royalties. When he later reached Philadelphia, Dickens discovered that even his earliest work “Sketches by Boz� was being printed and sold to readers, with no copyright law in place. In New York the latest installment of “The Old Curiosity Shop� was in great demand, with the harbour crowded with throngs of his fans desperate to hear about the fate of Little Nell. Each month the magazine would be taken by ship, transcribed, printed, and sold there - but Dickens himself did not receive a penny for his novels.
He used the chance in many of his speeches in America, to call for international copyright law, and his persistence in discussing the subject led to much criticism. Dickens held many meetings with influential people and publishers, and formed a group of other writers to alert the public and get the law changed, but he includes none of this in American Notes. John Forster advised Dickens as to what might not be acceptable to his readers, and chapter 19 of his huge 3 volume biography of Dickens includes several of these letters. Taken together, we can get a fuller picture: the bald facts without embellishment.
The situation in Canada was different, however. As a British Province, British copyright law applied.
So did America really right all the wrongs of the Old World? We can see him constantly evaluating throughout, where everything he comes across is compared with the “status quo� of England. Dickens now stresses what he has repeated both throughout the narrative and in the preface, that he finds much to admire in the Americans he has met, and in their way of life. He considers those he has met to be in the main very friendly and respectful, and contrasts the informality and “utmost courtesy� of their public departments.
However he also states that it is only fair to note what he sees as their faults. He sometimes does this candidly, sometimes with a sense of outrage, and sometimes jocularly. Observing “everyone talks to you�, he soon tired of being mobbed, and early on he actually pretended to fall asleep when a passenger was pointedly pontificating about the true principles on which books of travel in America should be written by an Englishman.
And he really hated the American tendency to organise everything according to party politics, so that everything came down to political allegiance.
Over 2 chapters he expresses his considered analysis of what he viewed as major flaws in American society. Most serious by far was the question of slavery, about which he felt passionate. It seemed inconceivable to him that a new progressive country should condone - and even boast about in some States - “that most hideous blot and foul disgrace …�, which had been abolished throughout the Britain Empire in 1833.
Dickens wrote a logical, reasoned argument against slavery, arguing in detail how such a system corrupted both whites and blacks in slave states, and also pointed out that the free states were complicit in the system. Then came a long list verbatim, of adverts for runaway slaves in newspapers. (Incidentally, he took these hideous adverts from a pamphlet written by Theodore D. Weld and published by the Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, but he did not acknowledge it.) He was horrified by such physical violence, mutilating both male and female slaves.
The next thing Dickens abhorred in America was the prevalence of violence. The ideals of liberty and equality he observed, seemed to include the freedom to shoot or knife any other American.
Thirdly, he listed what he calls the “universal distrust�, where people suspected others and sought to gain advantage over them. He largely blamed the scandal-seeking press for undermining private life and destroying everyone’s confidence in public life. As other writers had said, Dickens stated that the universal obsession with reading poor quality newspapers was why America did not have its own literature.
Allied to this was what Dickens observed to be the American ideal of making a “smart deal�. The overriding commercial urge, with everything sacrificed to business and the idolisation of successful businessmen meant that America was a capitalist jungle. This led to its people being far too serious; lacking both in humour and a wider perspective.
Finally came a point which Americans must have found hugely insulting. In many places throughout American Notes Dickens found standards of personal cleanliness and public health very primitive. He was particularly disgusted by the almost universal habit of spitting, and although his descriptions of several episodes are hilarious, it is clear that Dickens was revolted by this practice. Perhaps he suspected that his overly genteel readers back home would be secretly delighted at his confirming their opinions of just how vulgar the Americans were.
American Notes was published in October 1842 by Chapman Hall, just four months after his return. The reaction from some Americans was vitriolic. The New York Herald dismissed it as “the essence of balderdash�. Even 22 years later, Mark Twain was suspected of parodying Dickens in his “Innocents Abroad� (1869), although he went on to write 5 more travelogues.
American Notes is a hugely detailed book, packed to the brim with information, as well as Dickens’s outspoken and honest opinions. It is well worth reading as a unique snapshot of a time and place. Most Victorian journals are lengthy, just as the novels are, and numerous details are crammed into this one. It has been impossible to convey more than a flavour of the whole in this review, but in the comment sections I will post Dickens’s Itinerary.
Many Europeans had made this risky journey, as travelogues were becoming increasingly popular. During 1815-1860 there were to be 200 such accounts of travels across the Atlantic. It was quite a temptation for the young Dickens, who was both well read and astute. He wanted to be in at the start; to “report back� himself. People in the Old Country were curious to discover just how far the settlers had progressed in creating a democratic republic, with room and equality for all. Some stressed the hardships settlers might have to face, methods of agriculture being of interest to those in England. Those with radical and reformist ideals like Dickens wanted to know just how successful America’s experiments in government, economics and law were proving to be. His focus and tone is markedly different from his “Pictures from Italy� four years later, where he wrote far more like a tourist.
However neither of these works is a straight travelogue. Try as he might, they come across as extremely subjective, and this of course is why they are so entertaining, and deserve to be far more widely read. The stamp of Dickens: the entertainment factor, the humour, the disproportionate time spent on minor details which interested him, the lack of patience with any cant or ceremony are all here in abundance.
Even the title itself is a joke. The work certainly is “notes� rather than a structured journal with dates; he skips to and fro when he feels diverted. The title can also be seen as a pun. American Notes for General Circulation could well be a joke at the expense of American currency. The end of the Second Bank of the United States and the ensuing worldwide financial panic of 1837 led to widespread bank failures, and rendered much paper currency worthless.
Dickens’s trip lasted for 6 months; he returned in June. For all that time his children had been at home in London, left with Dickens’s sister Fanny and the sculptor Angus Fletcher. Daniel Maclise made a sketch of them (which now hangs in the Doughty St. Museum) and Catherine loved it so much that she took it with her to Canada and America, and hung it on the wall of every place they stayed in. George Washington Putnam from Boston was soon hired as Dickens’s “faithful secretary� (although Catherine disliked him) and also stayed with them throughout the trip, writing his own record later.
Charles Dickens - Travels in America and Canada 1842 - with thanks to David Perdue’s Charles Dickens Page
So we embark on the journey, and Dickens’s excitement is palpable. In this first chapter we can feel the optimism and energy fizzling, as he describes the ridiculously cramped proportions of his “state room�, sleeping on bunks with a “very thin mattress, spread like a surgical plaster on a most inaccessible shelf�. Being Dickens he exaggerates for effect to the point of absurdity, with “portmanteaus which could now no more be got in at the door, not to say stowed away, than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a flower-pot�. However his optimism is infectious, so they all talk it up among themselves and persuade each other that it was actually a paradise of a cabin, and not a miniscule box of a room at all.
They consume the same menu for 3 weeks: boiled potatoes, roasted apples, and various meats, although the alcoholic drinks were plentiful! But after 3 weeks on board the steamship, suffering seasickness in some of the worst storms in living memory and only 3 days of calm seas, they were eager to arrive.
The Britannica approached the American continent by way of Nova Scotia amid terrifying weather, and ran aground at the capital, Halifax, where a crewman set off at 3 am in a rowing boat, uprooting a small tree to bring back to prove to the travellers that there was land close by! They were relieved to eventually set foot in the city of Boston, which delighted Dickens: “the air was so clear, the houses were so bright and gay � The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to impress all strangers very favourably.� In fact this remained his favourite city of the tour.
Whilst in Boston Dickens visited the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind and met Laura Bridgman, considered the first deaf-blind person to receive an education in English. Dickens was so impressed that he included the account of her progress from Dr Howe’s clinical notes almost verbatim. Chapter 3 is thus at least double the length of any other chapter. When Helen Keller’s parents read this account, they were inspired to seek an education for their own daughter from the teacher Annie Sullivan.
Dickens’s journey to Lowell, Massachusetts by railroad is a masterpiece of comic writing, as well as social comment. There was a male-only carriage plus a third carriage for unaccompanied women - and men - as long as they had a female companion with them. This was an improvement on the restrictions for respectable females in England, never being able to travel alone on a railway. However he hated the stuffy anthracite stoves everywhere, and was already noting the different conditions for black people: “As a black man never travels with a white one, there is also a negro car�, which segregation would be very shocking to his British readers. Dickens describes it as a “a great blundering clumsy chest such as Gulliver put to sea in, from the kingdom of Brobdingnag.� It could be that he uses such humour not only to deflect his horror, but also to exorcise it for the time being.
At Lowell he was very favourably impressed by the young factory women, who were mainly women and children from farming backgrounds. These were healthy, well-fed young women working happily in good conditions and educating themselves in their leisure time. They had access to libraries, a piano, and even wrote and printed a magazine of articles called “The Lowell Offering�. Dickens was greatly taken by this and read 400 pages.
He wrote a detailed account, comparing it with the appalling conditions for mill workers in Lancashire. Even 7 years later in 1848 Elizabeth Gaskell was to describe the utter poverty and suffering in industrial Manchester in “Mary Barton�.
Dickens was determined to investigate all the different sorts of institutions, and throughout spent a great deal of time looking at schools, prisons, factories and hospitals where friends such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had arranged visits for him. He also explored different churches, government institutions, legal systems and courts, and discussed philosophical theories and religions he came across.
In Hartford, Dickens visited the Insane Asylum and a State Prison, recording his positive interactions with the patients and inmates. He then headed to New York through The (Long Island) Sound on a small steamship; another comic part as it did not bear comparison with those in England. New York at that time was just the city: New York, New York. Dickens wrote a marvellously ambiguous satirical description about the “hogs of New York�: escaped pigs which had multiplied and were causing a real problem in the busy city.
Moving next to Philadelphia, Dickens’s description of the Eastern Penitentiary, a solitary confinement prison there is unforgettable. Whilst recognising that the intention of the management was sincere, and the conditions were clean, his horror of the concept is unmistakable. The many examples he records show us that very few people could cope mentally with such harsh deprivation.
Straightaway then, we see that Dickens dives into an analysis of social conditions and the plight of the disadvantaged, rather than just a tourist’s view, or zooming in on his own copyright problems. But with volume 2 (chapter 9) the tone changes.
Dickens continued South to Washington and met the President, although he politely declined a second meeting as he wanted to stick to his itinerary. Even here, he was revolted by the ever-present habit of spitting. Then followed a steamboat ride to Fredericksburg, before a railroad ride from Fredericksburg to Richmond.
This was the deepest downward dive, encountering slavery at first hand. Dickens described a harrowing scene: a slave woman with her children who had been sold, leaving behind a father and a husband. “The children cried the whole way and the mother was misery’s picture.� Describing this truly heart-rending episode, Dickens was shocked and disgusted to the core, abandoning his plans to explore the Southern States, as he dreaded what he would find.
For the only time, he changed his itinerary and travelled further West. He used steamboats more than the railroads, and his focus switched to be the land itself, concentrating more on the conditions of recent European emigrants to America, beginning with the journey from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati in a Western steamboat.
Dickens began to be weary and disillusioned, surrounded by travellers who were all so dogged and worn down, with so little sense of humour. Steamboat after steamboat followed, some trips as long as 12 hours to Louisville. But here a stranger requested to meet him: a Choctaw Indian named Pitchlynn. Dickens was excited to see someone in their native costume, and disappointed to meet a dignified man in a suit. Peter Pitchlynn was a famous Native American who became a tribal chief, well-respected for his education and diplomatic skills. He sorrowed at the demise of his people, but knew it was inevitable as both sides were entrenched. Dickens was most impressed with Pitchlynn’s wisdom.
The journey seemed interminable following the Mississippi. Perhaps the land they were trying to tame, cutting down dozens of trees which sank into the swamp, explained the migrants� numb exhaustion. He loathed Cairo, saving this up in his mind to satirise so savagely in “Martin Chuzzlewit�. There were brief respites such as meeting a gentle Kentucky giant.
Neither could he see why so much was made of the prairie at the frontier of Ohio. It was nothing compared with the scenery at home.
He backtracked towards Canada, visiting Toronto, Montreal and Quebec. His encounter with Niagara Falls was mesmeric; a profound spiritual experience for him; one which affected him all his life. “I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll and leap and roar and tumble all day long.� We see glimpses of this in his writing, with all his esoteric references to moving water.
Much as he enjoyed the Canadian part of his journey, Dickens was glad to see the coast of Ireland, and leave the sailing ship at Liverpool.
All the copious letters Dickens wrote to his friend John Forster formed the basis of American Notes, which he wrote a few months after he had returned home. However his American readers violently objected to his depictions. His journey also provided the inspiration for his next novel “Martin Chuzzlewit� but satirising the people and their practices inadvertently further irritated his American readers.
Eight years later, in his preface to the first cheap edition Dickens offered a sort of apologia:
“I have nothing to defend, or to explain away. The truth is the truth; and neither childish absurdities, nor unscrupulous contradictions, can make it otherwise. The earth would still move round the sun, though the whole Catholic Church said No �
I never have been otherwise than in favour of the United States. No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores, with a stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in America.�
Such approval was quite outspoken for a loyal subject of Queen Victoria. But the bad feeling against him in America was only finally quelled by his second visit: a reading tour in 1867-68, undertaken despite being advised against on health issues.
Another trigger for Dickens’s trip was the lack of copyright. From “The Pickwick Papers� onwards Dickens was plagued by pirate editions of his works, since there was no copyright law whatsoever in the United States at the time. Despite his furious objections, it was only getting worse, with bootleg works published freely. Dickens received many fan letters from his American readers, and realised that every single copy of his novels was sold there without him receiving a penny in royalties. When he later reached Philadelphia, Dickens discovered that even his earliest work “Sketches by Boz� was being printed and sold to readers, with no copyright law in place. In New York the latest installment of “The Old Curiosity Shop� was in great demand, with the harbour crowded with throngs of his fans desperate to hear about the fate of Little Nell. Each month the magazine would be taken by ship, transcribed, printed, and sold there - but Dickens himself did not receive a penny for his novels.
He used the chance in many of his speeches in America, to call for international copyright law, and his persistence in discussing the subject led to much criticism. Dickens held many meetings with influential people and publishers, and formed a group of other writers to alert the public and get the law changed, but he includes none of this in American Notes. John Forster advised Dickens as to what might not be acceptable to his readers, and chapter 19 of his huge 3 volume biography of Dickens includes several of these letters. Taken together, we can get a fuller picture: the bald facts without embellishment.
The situation in Canada was different, however. As a British Province, British copyright law applied.
So did America really right all the wrongs of the Old World? We can see him constantly evaluating throughout, where everything he comes across is compared with the “status quo� of England. Dickens now stresses what he has repeated both throughout the narrative and in the preface, that he finds much to admire in the Americans he has met, and in their way of life. He considers those he has met to be in the main very friendly and respectful, and contrasts the informality and “utmost courtesy� of their public departments.
However he also states that it is only fair to note what he sees as their faults. He sometimes does this candidly, sometimes with a sense of outrage, and sometimes jocularly. Observing “everyone talks to you�, he soon tired of being mobbed, and early on he actually pretended to fall asleep when a passenger was pointedly pontificating about the true principles on which books of travel in America should be written by an Englishman.
And he really hated the American tendency to organise everything according to party politics, so that everything came down to political allegiance.
Over 2 chapters he expresses his considered analysis of what he viewed as major flaws in American society. Most serious by far was the question of slavery, about which he felt passionate. It seemed inconceivable to him that a new progressive country should condone - and even boast about in some States - “that most hideous blot and foul disgrace …�, which had been abolished throughout the Britain Empire in 1833.
Dickens wrote a logical, reasoned argument against slavery, arguing in detail how such a system corrupted both whites and blacks in slave states, and also pointed out that the free states were complicit in the system. Then came a long list verbatim, of adverts for runaway slaves in newspapers. (Incidentally, he took these hideous adverts from a pamphlet written by Theodore D. Weld and published by the Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, but he did not acknowledge it.) He was horrified by such physical violence, mutilating both male and female slaves.
The next thing Dickens abhorred in America was the prevalence of violence. The ideals of liberty and equality he observed, seemed to include the freedom to shoot or knife any other American.
Thirdly, he listed what he calls the “universal distrust�, where people suspected others and sought to gain advantage over them. He largely blamed the scandal-seeking press for undermining private life and destroying everyone’s confidence in public life. As other writers had said, Dickens stated that the universal obsession with reading poor quality newspapers was why America did not have its own literature.
Allied to this was what Dickens observed to be the American ideal of making a “smart deal�. The overriding commercial urge, with everything sacrificed to business and the idolisation of successful businessmen meant that America was a capitalist jungle. This led to its people being far too serious; lacking both in humour and a wider perspective.
Finally came a point which Americans must have found hugely insulting. In many places throughout American Notes Dickens found standards of personal cleanliness and public health very primitive. He was particularly disgusted by the almost universal habit of spitting, and although his descriptions of several episodes are hilarious, it is clear that Dickens was revolted by this practice. Perhaps he suspected that his overly genteel readers back home would be secretly delighted at his confirming their opinions of just how vulgar the Americans were.
American Notes was published in October 1842 by Chapman Hall, just four months after his return. The reaction from some Americans was vitriolic. The New York Herald dismissed it as “the essence of balderdash�. Even 22 years later, Mark Twain was suspected of parodying Dickens in his “Innocents Abroad� (1869), although he went on to write 5 more travelogues.
American Notes is a hugely detailed book, packed to the brim with information, as well as Dickens’s outspoken and honest opinions. It is well worth reading as a unique snapshot of a time and place. Most Victorian journals are lengthy, just as the novels are, and numerous details are crammed into this one. It has been impossible to convey more than a flavour of the whole in this review, but in the comment sections I will post Dickens’s Itinerary.
November 23, 2019
Un libro casi “desconocido � en la gran producción de el autor.
📇En el Dickens nos lleva con él donde quiera que fuera.
Entre otros lugares visitamos Nueva York,Filadelfia,Washington,Pittsburg,Saint Lluïsa,Canadá y hasta las Cataratas del Niagara.
Somos un viajero más en el barco,el ferrocarril,la diligencia.
📇Visitó el “Nuevo mundo� en 1842 durante 6 meses.El libro es un testimonio sociopolítico de la Norteamérica de mediados del siglo XIX.
📇Descriptivo,curioso,crítico nos lleva a visitar correccionales,instituciones infantiles,hospitales,manicomios,comercios,plantaciones.
Las comparaciones con las instituciones de Inglaterra son inevitables.Aun así es imparcial en sus descripciones hasta el final,donde dedica un capítulo a las conclusiones y se sincera en sus opiniones sobre lo visto y lo vivido.
📇Trata temas políticos como la expropiacion de tierras indias.Pero el capítulo más duro es el que dedica a la esclavitud,cita textualmente anuncios de periódicos que revuelven las extrañas al lector y que muestran al escritor sincero y crítico que es,que lucha con su pluma contra la injusticia.
📌”No hay vagones de primera y segunda clase como en Inglaterra;pero hay un vagón
para caballeros y otro para señoras�.
🖤Si sois “fans� del autor tenéis que añadir este libro a sus lecturas.
📇En el Dickens nos lleva con él donde quiera que fuera.
Entre otros lugares visitamos Nueva York,Filadelfia,Washington,Pittsburg,Saint Lluïsa,Canadá y hasta las Cataratas del Niagara.
Somos un viajero más en el barco,el ferrocarril,la diligencia.
📇Visitó el “Nuevo mundo� en 1842 durante 6 meses.El libro es un testimonio sociopolítico de la Norteamérica de mediados del siglo XIX.
📇Descriptivo,curioso,crítico nos lleva a visitar correccionales,instituciones infantiles,hospitales,manicomios,comercios,plantaciones.
Las comparaciones con las instituciones de Inglaterra son inevitables.Aun así es imparcial en sus descripciones hasta el final,donde dedica un capítulo a las conclusiones y se sincera en sus opiniones sobre lo visto y lo vivido.
📇Trata temas políticos como la expropiacion de tierras indias.Pero el capítulo más duro es el que dedica a la esclavitud,cita textualmente anuncios de periódicos que revuelven las extrañas al lector y que muestran al escritor sincero y crítico que es,que lucha con su pluma contra la injusticia.
📌”No hay vagones de primera y segunda clase como en Inglaterra;pero hay un vagón
para caballeros y otro para señoras�.
🖤Si sois “fans� del autor tenéis que añadir este libro a sus lecturas.
September 3, 2011
I'm going to start by saying I don't recommend this book for anyone who has to read is for a school course. Books like this should never be read under duress. Also, if you read this book, I recommend saving the introductory matter for last and beginning with Dickens' narrative.
Although he was a bestselling and well-known author at the time of his trip to America, Dickens had only published a handful of works and was only 29 at the time he embarked. He'd just lost his job as a journalist in 1839, so he probably didn't see himself solely as a writer of fiction in January 1842. I suspect, in visiting prisons, mental institutions, Congress, and making observations not only about slavery, but regarding Temperance, various religions and society, his idea was not only to write a travelogue, but to bring home materials for many other articles about America as well, to be sold to whatever periodicals would pay. I'm glad this wasn't a simple travelogue, because history would have lost out on a beautifully detailed view of the early American Republic.
I found the most amazing parts of American Notes to be Dickens' depictions of traveling itself. Between crossing the North Atlantic in the middle of winter 50 years before the Titantic, stagecoaches constantly mired in mud, and the early days of steamboating, when the contraptions were more likely to explode than not, it's a wonder he survived the journey. The world might never have seen A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, or any of his other later works.
I loved his humor in American Notes. His unabridged short stories have that kind of humor, but most, even A Christmas Carol, have had the humor edited out over the years. American Notes very much reminded me of Mark Twain's travel books. Twain almost certainly read Dickens and was influenced by him.
But, of course, the best of American Notes is Dickens' writing--his descriptions, his characterizations, the way he puts words together. And also the insight we get into Charles Dickens, the person.
Although he was a bestselling and well-known author at the time of his trip to America, Dickens had only published a handful of works and was only 29 at the time he embarked. He'd just lost his job as a journalist in 1839, so he probably didn't see himself solely as a writer of fiction in January 1842. I suspect, in visiting prisons, mental institutions, Congress, and making observations not only about slavery, but regarding Temperance, various religions and society, his idea was not only to write a travelogue, but to bring home materials for many other articles about America as well, to be sold to whatever periodicals would pay. I'm glad this wasn't a simple travelogue, because history would have lost out on a beautifully detailed view of the early American Republic.
I found the most amazing parts of American Notes to be Dickens' depictions of traveling itself. Between crossing the North Atlantic in the middle of winter 50 years before the Titantic, stagecoaches constantly mired in mud, and the early days of steamboating, when the contraptions were more likely to explode than not, it's a wonder he survived the journey. The world might never have seen A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, or any of his other later works.
I loved his humor in American Notes. His unabridged short stories have that kind of humor, but most, even A Christmas Carol, have had the humor edited out over the years. American Notes very much reminded me of Mark Twain's travel books. Twain almost certainly read Dickens and was influenced by him.
But, of course, the best of American Notes is Dickens' writing--his descriptions, his characterizations, the way he puts words together. And also the insight we get into Charles Dickens, the person.
March 30, 2025
In January of 1842, Charles Dickens came to the United States with his wife and a small contingent to tour through the settled areas, some of eastern Canada and gather a picture of his American public. In return he wrote this book, a piece of travel writing, with diversions into areas of his personal interest such as prison systems and the rehabilitation of prisoners, the seemingly out of control habit of spitting among American males (and their neglect of using spittoons). Beyond that he considers the variety of hotels or boarding houses from Boston to Washington, from Cincinnati to the edge of the prairie, the various boats and carriages involved in his transport, the state (or lack of state) of roads, etc. Some conversation is serious while others appear to be firmly tongue in cheek though based in fact. His encounter with slavery in Baltimore and Washington D.C.resulted in his not venturing as far south as he had intended, as far the Carolinas.
While most of this book is written in a utilitarian way, there are sections where the prose comes alive and the novelist becomes apparent. The champion of the underdog can be seen in Dickens� various discussions of the prisons he toured, the conditions he found, the prisoners he met. There are also sections of purely Dickensonian humor. A must read is the description of the ship boarding in England, in fact most of the boats and vehicles he used everywhere during his travels.
An appendix written in 1868, after a later trip to the U.S. attempts to offset the negative reception that followed his first. He states that it will be affixed to all future editions of the book. In it he states his increased admiration for the country and its people and society.
Another appendix deals with some other serious concerns from his 1842 visit, the treatment of slaves and free blacks in the new country and the amount of violence among the men, using weapons freely to solve arguments.
Anyone who wants to know Dickens should read this work.
While most of this book is written in a utilitarian way, there are sections where the prose comes alive and the novelist becomes apparent. The champion of the underdog can be seen in Dickens� various discussions of the prisons he toured, the conditions he found, the prisoners he met. There are also sections of purely Dickensonian humor. A must read is the description of the ship boarding in England, in fact most of the boats and vehicles he used everywhere during his travels.
An appendix written in 1868, after a later trip to the U.S. attempts to offset the negative reception that followed his first. He states that it will be affixed to all future editions of the book. In it he states his increased admiration for the country and its people and society.
Another appendix deals with some other serious concerns from his 1842 visit, the treatment of slaves and free blacks in the new country and the amount of violence among the men, using weapons freely to solve arguments.
Anyone who wants to know Dickens should read this work.
August 20, 2014
Charles Dickens, in my opinion, is a severely overrated, rather self-important and self-righteous bore. So I don't like most of this books.
This time, though, while he's still a self-important and self-righteous bore whose sense of humour essentially is based entirely on the assumption that the rest of the world is stupid (which, admittedly, is a fair assumption to make), he actually manages to turn these traits to his advantage. It's not very nice being all the aforementioned while writing fiction, but extremely entertaining to the reader in a travel memoir - just ask Twain. After all, Innocents Abroad is the quintessence of these traits.
Dickens' account of America is entertaining, too, because it's rather fascinating to see how the world changed since he was there. Sometimes in rather spectacular ways. Let's take an example - the amazed soliloquies about the moral enlightenment and advanced tactic inherent in the "silent discipline" prison system. Where, you guessed it, no prisoners are allowed to talk to each other, ever. Shudder though you might it's an excellent demonstration of both how people thought then about moral issues and character, and how bad London prisons must have been.
Entertaining, too, are his predictions concerning America's future. For example "Washington [D.C.] is half-empty, and likely to remain so, because nobody who doesn't have to would ever come here." It's also rather amusing to discover that Americans got into the habit of chewing stuff (tobacco rather than gum) already as far back as the 1800s, and that even at that point in time they ate meat three times a day.
It's not as insightful as Tocqueville's travelogue (which actually becomes philosophy and political science), but it is entertaining, and though Dickens' representation of America seems a little detached from the reality of even the America of the time - not to mention of today - it's certainly a glimpse.
P.S.: On a personal note, as an Old-Worlder who lived for a period in that extremely organized and planned country, I was terribly amused by Dickens' comment, describing either Pittsburgh or Philadelphia - I can't recall which - as "too organized and laid out." and saying that "after a while [he was] willing to give an eye for the sight of a curved street."
Amen to that, Dickens.
This time, though, while he's still a self-important and self-righteous bore whose sense of humour essentially is based entirely on the assumption that the rest of the world is stupid (which, admittedly, is a fair assumption to make), he actually manages to turn these traits to his advantage. It's not very nice being all the aforementioned while writing fiction, but extremely entertaining to the reader in a travel memoir - just ask Twain. After all, Innocents Abroad is the quintessence of these traits.
Dickens' account of America is entertaining, too, because it's rather fascinating to see how the world changed since he was there. Sometimes in rather spectacular ways. Let's take an example - the amazed soliloquies about the moral enlightenment and advanced tactic inherent in the "silent discipline" prison system. Where, you guessed it, no prisoners are allowed to talk to each other, ever. Shudder though you might it's an excellent demonstration of both how people thought then about moral issues and character, and how bad London prisons must have been.
Entertaining, too, are his predictions concerning America's future. For example "Washington [D.C.] is half-empty, and likely to remain so, because nobody who doesn't have to would ever come here." It's also rather amusing to discover that Americans got into the habit of chewing stuff (tobacco rather than gum) already as far back as the 1800s, and that even at that point in time they ate meat three times a day.
It's not as insightful as Tocqueville's travelogue (which actually becomes philosophy and political science), but it is entertaining, and though Dickens' representation of America seems a little detached from the reality of even the America of the time - not to mention of today - it's certainly a glimpse.
P.S.: On a personal note, as an Old-Worlder who lived for a period in that extremely organized and planned country, I was terribly amused by Dickens' comment, describing either Pittsburgh or Philadelphia - I can't recall which - as "too organized and laid out." and saying that "after a while [he was] willing to give an eye for the sight of a curved street."
Amen to that, Dickens.
November 4, 2011
In this book, we see nineteenth-century Washington congressmen hocking tobacco-juice loogies all over the Congressional carpets. This book is awesome.
American Notes for General Circulation is a portrait of 1842 America and Americans unlike any I’d ever encountered. Probably because, as it turns out, Americans liked Dickens's social commentary about stuff like Oliver Twist not getting a little more, but didn’t so much want to hear critiques about themselves. Typical. And so the book hasn’t come down in the classic US canon for the ages.
I think that maybe it should have. I’m still haunted by Dickens's image of traveling west, pre-railroad, through a soggy brown wasteland of gigantic stumps and tiny shacks � Little House on the Prairie it ain’t. And the discomfort, difficulty and danger (seems like those newfangled steam ships had a tendency to explode) of Dickens’s journey is riveting in itself, down to the descriptions of the shipboard accommodations, particularly the cuisine (look for it!).
But it’s not all jolly in travelogue land. Dickens found the institution of slavery so repugnant that a well-deserved excoriation of the US for tolerating it is a major focus of the book. Yay, Dickens! But did anyone else notice that in the midst of his knight errantry on behalf of the enslaved and impoverished, his treatment of women was rather problematic? I mean, he spends a not-insignificant portion of the book checking out hot Yankee babes (in kind of a creepy way), making scathing remarks about those Cambridge, MA bluestockings, and presenting his wife in a less-than-flattering light. Boo, Dickens! Now writing three-dimensional women was not exactly Dickens’s strong suit, but I’ve always cut him some Victorian male slack on that one. But as he served up yet another ogle, something gave, and I haven’t been able to cut him quite the same length of slack since.
My issues with Dickens and women didn’t scuttle the book, though, which is hilarious, insightful and feels awfully familiar. The more things change�
American Notes for General Circulation is a portrait of 1842 America and Americans unlike any I’d ever encountered. Probably because, as it turns out, Americans liked Dickens's social commentary about stuff like Oliver Twist not getting a little more, but didn’t so much want to hear critiques about themselves. Typical. And so the book hasn’t come down in the classic US canon for the ages.
I think that maybe it should have. I’m still haunted by Dickens's image of traveling west, pre-railroad, through a soggy brown wasteland of gigantic stumps and tiny shacks � Little House on the Prairie it ain’t. And the discomfort, difficulty and danger (seems like those newfangled steam ships had a tendency to explode) of Dickens’s journey is riveting in itself, down to the descriptions of the shipboard accommodations, particularly the cuisine (look for it!).
But it’s not all jolly in travelogue land. Dickens found the institution of slavery so repugnant that a well-deserved excoriation of the US for tolerating it is a major focus of the book. Yay, Dickens! But did anyone else notice that in the midst of his knight errantry on behalf of the enslaved and impoverished, his treatment of women was rather problematic? I mean, he spends a not-insignificant portion of the book checking out hot Yankee babes (in kind of a creepy way), making scathing remarks about those Cambridge, MA bluestockings, and presenting his wife in a less-than-flattering light. Boo, Dickens! Now writing three-dimensional women was not exactly Dickens’s strong suit, but I’ve always cut him some Victorian male slack on that one. But as he served up yet another ogle, something gave, and I haven’t been able to cut him quite the same length of slack since.
My issues with Dickens and women didn’t scuttle the book, though, which is hilarious, insightful and feels awfully familiar. The more things change�
January 23, 2024
Interesting account of notes from Dickens' travels to the United States in 1842. Very different from the notes of Alexis de Tocqueville who visited only a decade earlier. The latter has a decidedly more positive view of America's democracy, and was able to hold the paradox of American liberties with the practice of slavery. Dickens, however, was more shocked by the South and could not seem to reconcile the two. He takes great consideration of America's prisons and not as much on her industry. I believe he felt let down by the Republic he had hoped to see.
March 16, 2021
ENGLISH: While reading the biography of Dickens by his friend John Forster, in the part about Dickens's first trip to America, which mentions the book he published later about that trip, I felt like reading it, so I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg and now have read it.
Interesting travel book, where Dickens not only tells what he saw, but also criticizes it, making comparisons with the methods used in his own country (the United Kingdom), criticisms that sometimes result in the detriment of one system and sometimes of the other.
Dickens tells about his visit to a school for handicapped children. One of the pupils he mentions is a girl in a similar situation to Hellen Keller (she was blind, deaf and mute and had also lost her sense of smell). He tells in detail how her teacher was able to pierce the darkness enveloping her mind and teach her first to read from texts written with bas-relief letters, and later the deaf-and-mute-language, in a similar way as when Ann Sullivan taught Hellen Keller to communicate and even to talk.
An interesting detail: in recounting his visit to the Philadelphia prison, Dickens seems to be writing a new version of "Le mie prigioni" by Silvio Pellico, a book I have just read. It's amazing how sometimes they almost use the same words. But while Silvio suffered what he recounts, Dickens is sharing the ideas that arose in his head when he saw what others suffered. Sometimes I've wondered if he had read Silvio's book, but being an Italian work published just ten years before, I don't think it's likely. If he did not read it, the coincidence of both views is remarkable.
There is a chapter about slavery, parts of which could be used now against the present scourge of abortion, just by changing a few words. And there is a onslaught against a certain press in the US, which may be interesting to quote, as it can be applied today to most of the press in both the US and Europe, where gender ideology has occupied the place of what Dickens was then denouncing:
While the newspaper press of America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral improvement in that country is hopeless. Year by year, it must and will go back... year by year, the Congress and the Senate must become of less account before all decent men... When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can climb to any public distinction, no matter what, in America, without first grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee before this monster of depravity; when any private excellence is safe from its attacks... when any man in that free country has freedom of opinion, and presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without humble reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and despises in his heart...: then, I will believe that its influence [of this press] is lessening, and men are returning to their manly senses.
Many Americans didn't like much this book, nor did they like how they appear in the subsequent Dickens novel (Martin Chuzzlewit), for they feel criticized, but Dickens simply explained his opinion about them sincerely and without unnecessary flattery.
ESPAÑOL: Leyendo la biografía de Dickens por su amigo John Forster, al llegar a la parte en la que hace referencia al primer viaje de Dickens a América y al libro que publicó después sobre ese viaje, me entraron ganas de leerlo, lo descargué del Proyecto Gutenberg y lo he leído.
Interesante libro de viajes, en el que Dickens no sólo cuenta lo que vio, sino que lo critica, haciendo comparaciones con los métodos empleados en su propio país (el Reino Unido), críticas que a veces resultan en detrimento de un sistema y otras veces del otro.
Dickens cuenta su visita a una escuela para niños discapacitados. Una de las alumnas que menciona es una niña en una situación similar a Hellen Keller (era ciega, sorda y muda y también había perdido el sentido del olfato). Dickens cuenta con detalle cómo su maestro fue capaz de perforar la oscuridad que la envolvía y enseñarle primero a leer textos escritos con letras en relieve, y luego el lenguaje de los sordomudos, de una manera similar a como Ann Sullivan enseñó a Hellen Keller a comunicarse y a hablar.
Un detalle interesante: al contar su visita a la prisión de Philadelphia, Dickens parece escribir una nueva versión de "Le mie prigioni" de Silvio Pellico, un libro que acabo de leer. Es increíble cómo a veces casi usan las mismas palabras. Pero mientras Silvio lo sufrió, Dickens está contando las ideas que surgieron en su cabeza al ver lo que sufrían los demás. A veces me he preguntado si habría leído el libro de Silvio, pero siendo una obra italiana publicada diez años antes no me parece probable. Si no lo leyó, la coincidencia de ambos es notable.
Hay un capítulo sobre la esclavitud, del que algunas partes podrían usarse ahora contra el flagelo actual del aborto, simplemente cambiando algunas palabras. Y hay una arremetida contra cierta prensa de los EE. UU. que me parece interesante citar, ya que hoy se puede aplicar a la mayor parte de la prensa, tanto en los EE.UU. como en Europa, donde la ideología de género ocupa ahora el lugar de lo que Dickens denunciaba:
Mientras la prensa de Estados Unidos siga estando en su abyecta situación actual, no es posible mejorar el estado moral de ese país. Año tras año, ese estado moral retrocederá... año tras año, el Congreso y el Senado deben rebajarse cada vez más ante cualquier hombre decente... Cuando cualquier hombre, cualesquiera que sean sus merecimientos intelectuales o de comportamiento, pueda alcanzar cualquier distinción pública, no importa cuál, en América, sin tener que arrastrarse doblando la rodilla ante este monstruo de depravación; cuando cualquier excelencia privada esté a salvo de sus ataques... cuando cualquier hombre en ese país libre tenga libertad de opinión, y pueda pensar por sí mismo y hablar por sí mismo, sin tener en cuenta una censura que, por su desenfrenada ignorancia y su vil falta de honradez, él detesta y desprecia totalmente en su corazón...: entonces, creeré que su influencia [de esa prensa] disminuye, y que el hombre recobra su sentido viril.
A muchos estadounidenses no les gustó este libro, ni tampoco cómo los presenta la novela subsiguiente de Dickens (Martin Chuzzlewit), porque se sienten criticados, pero Dickens se limitó a explicar su opinión sobre ellos con sinceridad y sin halagos innecesarios.
Interesting travel book, where Dickens not only tells what he saw, but also criticizes it, making comparisons with the methods used in his own country (the United Kingdom), criticisms that sometimes result in the detriment of one system and sometimes of the other.
Dickens tells about his visit to a school for handicapped children. One of the pupils he mentions is a girl in a similar situation to Hellen Keller (she was blind, deaf and mute and had also lost her sense of smell). He tells in detail how her teacher was able to pierce the darkness enveloping her mind and teach her first to read from texts written with bas-relief letters, and later the deaf-and-mute-language, in a similar way as when Ann Sullivan taught Hellen Keller to communicate and even to talk.
An interesting detail: in recounting his visit to the Philadelphia prison, Dickens seems to be writing a new version of "Le mie prigioni" by Silvio Pellico, a book I have just read. It's amazing how sometimes they almost use the same words. But while Silvio suffered what he recounts, Dickens is sharing the ideas that arose in his head when he saw what others suffered. Sometimes I've wondered if he had read Silvio's book, but being an Italian work published just ten years before, I don't think it's likely. If he did not read it, the coincidence of both views is remarkable.
There is a chapter about slavery, parts of which could be used now against the present scourge of abortion, just by changing a few words. And there is a onslaught against a certain press in the US, which may be interesting to quote, as it can be applied today to most of the press in both the US and Europe, where gender ideology has occupied the place of what Dickens was then denouncing:
While the newspaper press of America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral improvement in that country is hopeless. Year by year, it must and will go back... year by year, the Congress and the Senate must become of less account before all decent men... When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can climb to any public distinction, no matter what, in America, without first grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee before this monster of depravity; when any private excellence is safe from its attacks... when any man in that free country has freedom of opinion, and presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without humble reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and despises in his heart...: then, I will believe that its influence [of this press] is lessening, and men are returning to their manly senses.
Many Americans didn't like much this book, nor did they like how they appear in the subsequent Dickens novel (Martin Chuzzlewit), for they feel criticized, but Dickens simply explained his opinion about them sincerely and without unnecessary flattery.
ESPAÑOL: Leyendo la biografía de Dickens por su amigo John Forster, al llegar a la parte en la que hace referencia al primer viaje de Dickens a América y al libro que publicó después sobre ese viaje, me entraron ganas de leerlo, lo descargué del Proyecto Gutenberg y lo he leído.
Interesante libro de viajes, en el que Dickens no sólo cuenta lo que vio, sino que lo critica, haciendo comparaciones con los métodos empleados en su propio país (el Reino Unido), críticas que a veces resultan en detrimento de un sistema y otras veces del otro.
Dickens cuenta su visita a una escuela para niños discapacitados. Una de las alumnas que menciona es una niña en una situación similar a Hellen Keller (era ciega, sorda y muda y también había perdido el sentido del olfato). Dickens cuenta con detalle cómo su maestro fue capaz de perforar la oscuridad que la envolvía y enseñarle primero a leer textos escritos con letras en relieve, y luego el lenguaje de los sordomudos, de una manera similar a como Ann Sullivan enseñó a Hellen Keller a comunicarse y a hablar.
Un detalle interesante: al contar su visita a la prisión de Philadelphia, Dickens parece escribir una nueva versión de "Le mie prigioni" de Silvio Pellico, un libro que acabo de leer. Es increíble cómo a veces casi usan las mismas palabras. Pero mientras Silvio lo sufrió, Dickens está contando las ideas que surgieron en su cabeza al ver lo que sufrían los demás. A veces me he preguntado si habría leído el libro de Silvio, pero siendo una obra italiana publicada diez años antes no me parece probable. Si no lo leyó, la coincidencia de ambos es notable.
Hay un capítulo sobre la esclavitud, del que algunas partes podrían usarse ahora contra el flagelo actual del aborto, simplemente cambiando algunas palabras. Y hay una arremetida contra cierta prensa de los EE. UU. que me parece interesante citar, ya que hoy se puede aplicar a la mayor parte de la prensa, tanto en los EE.UU. como en Europa, donde la ideología de género ocupa ahora el lugar de lo que Dickens denunciaba:
Mientras la prensa de Estados Unidos siga estando en su abyecta situación actual, no es posible mejorar el estado moral de ese país. Año tras año, ese estado moral retrocederá... año tras año, el Congreso y el Senado deben rebajarse cada vez más ante cualquier hombre decente... Cuando cualquier hombre, cualesquiera que sean sus merecimientos intelectuales o de comportamiento, pueda alcanzar cualquier distinción pública, no importa cuál, en América, sin tener que arrastrarse doblando la rodilla ante este monstruo de depravación; cuando cualquier excelencia privada esté a salvo de sus ataques... cuando cualquier hombre en ese país libre tenga libertad de opinión, y pueda pensar por sí mismo y hablar por sí mismo, sin tener en cuenta una censura que, por su desenfrenada ignorancia y su vil falta de honradez, él detesta y desprecia totalmente en su corazón...: entonces, creeré que su influencia [de esa prensa] disminuye, y que el hombre recobra su sentido viril.
A muchos estadounidenses no les gustó este libro, ni tampoco cómo los presenta la novela subsiguiente de Dickens (Martin Chuzzlewit), porque se sienten criticados, pero Dickens se limitó a explicar su opinión sobre ellos con sinceridad y sin halagos innecesarios.
June 28, 2024
I started this one over a year ago, in preparation to read Martin Chuzzlewit, and then got sidetracked by many other awesome reading projects! Now that I'm buddy reading MC in July, I figured I had to get cracking and finish this, and I'm so happy I did! This is my first foray into Victorian travel writing, and it was fascinating and engaging. I'm so glad to have this window into Dickens's internal impressions of the US, prior to reading MC—his impressions of geography, culture, manners, suffrage, capitalism/trade, the prison system, slavery, and his infamous indictments of the American press and journalism. It will be fascinating to see how all of his personal experiences play out in the fictional canvas of MC. I can't wait to start it!
March 14, 2013
It is a universal truth that the more things change, the more they stay the same.( It is also a universal truth that we speak and write in cliches.) The traveler's view of America, written in 1842 has many uncomfortable truths to say to us in the America of 2013. That this traveler was Charles Dickens, already a critic of his country's poverty laws, government institutions, and the darker aspects of its culture, means that the US was about to face a reckoning--a literary one eighteen years before the real one. Dickens is well aware of the problem that that apocalyptic bloodletting will address. He writes almost all of the book as an account by train, carriage and ship through Eastern and Midwest America, in chronological order, and then he changes the structure and has a chapter called "Slavery." His feelings are not equivocal and he makes no attempt to hide them. When the comic travails of his journeys pass, he has some sober and harsh words for the country he saw.
In short, he laments slavery, the obsession with business, the dearth of imagination and playfulness, the terrible press, the trade, and the psychological American condition of distrusting everything. Who will read these concluding remarks and not think of our own problems now? We in our era have: racism, the obsession with business, the dearth of the creative in generating new ideas, the terrible press, the exports from China, and still, like an immortal weed, the American condition of distrusting everything--so much so that about 60% of eligible voters voted in the last election. And then we wonder why our government is so bad. Dickens actually talks about this. He speaks about the erosion of American public office from these corrosive influences.
And because he is Dickens, he has to visit the prisons and the mental wards of this country. Being a international best-selling author, he is allowed access, and boy, does he use his influence and prodigious verbal gifts to describe them. There is the justly famous, sympathetic and empathetic account of the horrors of solitary confinement. The Americans don't seem to put themselves in each others shoes, so they can't imagine they are doing a terrible thing to their fellow men. There is the opposite and bright story of Laura Bridgman, a blind and deaf girl who manages to learn and navigate the horrors of her darkness as Helen Keller did. There is a visit to the Lowell factories, that social experiment Dickens approves of. There are comical tales of the city featuring itinerant pigs. He does his best to record the essence of the country he sees--the good and the bad--and not to be diplomatic or use false words in that description, but to be honest, direct, moral, and true. In this time of national criticism being equated with and dismissed as national hate, this book is an important reminder that the highest form of patriotism is in fact looking with clear eyes at your country's flaws, writing down what you see so that you can begin to change them.
One person has identity, character and personality. A country is after all a group of millions of people and in the collective, a country, like the individual, has identity, character and personality. As with a man, a country can admit mistakes, learn from them, and grow. The sad truth of this book being read today is that America is in a state of arrested development and has been for a time.
In short, he laments slavery, the obsession with business, the dearth of imagination and playfulness, the terrible press, the trade, and the psychological American condition of distrusting everything. Who will read these concluding remarks and not think of our own problems now? We in our era have: racism, the obsession with business, the dearth of the creative in generating new ideas, the terrible press, the exports from China, and still, like an immortal weed, the American condition of distrusting everything--so much so that about 60% of eligible voters voted in the last election. And then we wonder why our government is so bad. Dickens actually talks about this. He speaks about the erosion of American public office from these corrosive influences.
And because he is Dickens, he has to visit the prisons and the mental wards of this country. Being a international best-selling author, he is allowed access, and boy, does he use his influence and prodigious verbal gifts to describe them. There is the justly famous, sympathetic and empathetic account of the horrors of solitary confinement. The Americans don't seem to put themselves in each others shoes, so they can't imagine they are doing a terrible thing to their fellow men. There is the opposite and bright story of Laura Bridgman, a blind and deaf girl who manages to learn and navigate the horrors of her darkness as Helen Keller did. There is a visit to the Lowell factories, that social experiment Dickens approves of. There are comical tales of the city featuring itinerant pigs. He does his best to record the essence of the country he sees--the good and the bad--and not to be diplomatic or use false words in that description, but to be honest, direct, moral, and true. In this time of national criticism being equated with and dismissed as national hate, this book is an important reminder that the highest form of patriotism is in fact looking with clear eyes at your country's flaws, writing down what you see so that you can begin to change them.
One person has identity, character and personality. A country is after all a group of millions of people and in the collective, a country, like the individual, has identity, character and personality. As with a man, a country can admit mistakes, learn from them, and grow. The sad truth of this book being read today is that America is in a state of arrested development and has been for a time.
January 25, 2025
This is a terrific book, both funny and insightful. In the 1840s, Charles Dickens took a journey to the United States. It was not the easiest of ocean journeys back in those days, and the constant concern of the ocean, the battle against seasickness, and the angst for a quicker arrival make for a delightful way to start this story. His descriptions of what he witnessed, including a chapter on slavery, make for an interesting look at the country from someone born in England.
I would recommend this book as a way to introduce yourself to Dickens. Some of the novels can be daunting. If you want to try something in a more lighthearted vein, in a book that anticipates the travel books that came in later decades, then this is worth your time.
I would recommend this book as a way to introduce yourself to Dickens. Some of the novels can be daunting. If you want to try something in a more lighthearted vein, in a book that anticipates the travel books that came in later decades, then this is worth your time.
September 16, 2008
Amazing, and screamingly funny sometimes, especially the part about hogs touring Broadway, and tobacco chewing in Washington, D.C. Very touching, too. His portrait of the enlightened Perkins Institute for the Blind is fascinating, especially the part about Laura Bridgman, one of the first deaf-blind students, who was about 13 at the time he visited. He contrasts this with the institutions for paupers in New York, which were at least as squalid and cruel as those in England. His exposure of the inhumane system at the Eastern State Penitentiary eventually led to fundamental changes at that prison.
I've been enjoying Dickens a lot this summer, and it's occurred to me that he and similar writers deserve a lot of credit for changes in social conditions over the last two centuries. They did not do the essential legwork, but in an age without photography, they exposed the results of inhumanity, cruelty, and indifference. Dickens wrote about the English Poor Laws that imprisoned debtors without trial, food, clothing, or hope (Little Dorrit); religious and secular charity that punished and used orphans (Oliver Twist); and society that subjugated and humilated women and children for the benefit of wealthy men (Nicholas Nickleby). Harriet Beecher Stowe flouted polite society and exposed the brutal reality of American slavery--in fact, she toned down the reality, but what she showed was bad enough to galvanize the sleepy emancipation movement. Upton Sinclair pulled no punches in his portrait of the abuses of meat plant workers, and his work led Americans to demand massive reforms.
I've been enjoying Dickens a lot this summer, and it's occurred to me that he and similar writers deserve a lot of credit for changes in social conditions over the last two centuries. They did not do the essential legwork, but in an age without photography, they exposed the results of inhumanity, cruelty, and indifference. Dickens wrote about the English Poor Laws that imprisoned debtors without trial, food, clothing, or hope (Little Dorrit); religious and secular charity that punished and used orphans (Oliver Twist); and society that subjugated and humilated women and children for the benefit of wealthy men (Nicholas Nickleby). Harriet Beecher Stowe flouted polite society and exposed the brutal reality of American slavery--in fact, she toned down the reality, but what she showed was bad enough to galvanize the sleepy emancipation movement. Upton Sinclair pulled no punches in his portrait of the abuses of meat plant workers, and his work led Americans to demand massive reforms.
September 26, 2018
American Notes, by the wonderful Charles Dickens, is one of the best books I ever read. Top 10? No. Top 20? Definitely! In 1842, the 30 year-old Dickens spent a few months in the United States, and even visited President Tyler in the White House. Dickens� very honest opinions on what he saw and experienced were a bit too much for some Americans , who didn’t like Dickens� views on slavery, which he rightfully could not compromise with. Dickens visited Boston, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, even St Louis, and he traveled to Canada. His descriptions of his travels via steamboat, railroad, stagecoach, and horseback are a pleasure to read, as his humor and sarcasm adds spice to the mix. His description of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia is a gem, not to mention an eye opener. Considering the fact that I read not for pleasure, but for learning, I will forevermore refer to this book when I think of the development of American culture, in all its glory and absurdity.
March 12, 2017
O perspectivă critică a lui Dickens asupra vieții americanilor din secolul al XIX. În călătoria sa prin mai multe orașe americane prezintă, ca într-un jurnal, frumusețea locurilor, dar aruncă o lumină nu tocmai favorabilă asupra politicii americane (fapt cu ajutorul căruia volumul a fost publicat în comunism, trecând cu brio de cenzura acestuia).
October 2, 2016
Devo ammettere che non sapevo quanto fosse divertente Dickens quando scriveva dei suoi viaggi. In questo fatto in America è anche straordinariamente incisivo e diretto. Libro adorato e introduzione puntuale e interessante. Imperdibile!
April 10, 2025
In 1842 Charles Dickens, age 30, already a well known writer in the US, traveled to North America to see this wondrous new country. He brought his wife, her maid, and many, many suitcases. It was a hard trip traveling west over the Atlantic in January, with many storms and rough seas. He took notes as he traveled, using the letters he sent to John Forester and his notes to write a summary of their trip. He was not always pleased with what he saw. The summary was published as American Notes for General Circulation.
After arriving in North America, and visiting Halifax, their ship traveled down the coast and left them in Boston. He spent time there, visiting that city and several other New England towns, and then they made their way to New York City and went on to Washington DC. Now, turning west, they traveled to the Ohio River and then by various boats, all the way to the Mississippi River. After visiting a prairie in Illinois, they turned back, to the East, with a side trip to Niagara Falls, Montreal and Quebec City, before returning to New York and sailing back to Liverpool. It was now May. After such a long and arduous trip, on various uncomfortable conveyances, they were tired of traveling, felt unwell and were eager to return home.
Whew! It was a long and often uncomfortable trip. Fortunately, the return voyage across the water was relatively peaceful. Surprisingly, during his stay in New England, he visited several prisons, an institution for the deaf and a mental institute. Apparently, he wanted to compare the US treatment of people to that of those in England. He was mostly pleased with what he saw. He met various political figures, attended plays and many, welcoming dinners. People were eager to meet him and hear his opinions.
On the whole, Dickens was not overly impressed with the US. He had strong negative opinions about slavery, and choose to not visit the South for that reason and because of the heat. Many Americans were displeased with his negative comments, and made it known. He did return to the US until 1867.
American Notes is often seen as an early example of travel writing. He does give his readers an interesting view of the everyday people and the landscape. To me, the most interesting parts were the challenges of travel, as it was usually uncomfortable, and the various types of conveyances he used.
I read American Notes with the Dickensians group on ŷ. John, our discussion leader, provided excellent background information and a good summary of each chapter. Bionic Jean, the group moderator, added more, and the group members made many thoughtful comments. Reading together with them definitely enhanced my appreciation of the book and led me to a greater understanding of Dickens and his trip. My thanks to all who participated!
After arriving in North America, and visiting Halifax, their ship traveled down the coast and left them in Boston. He spent time there, visiting that city and several other New England towns, and then they made their way to New York City and went on to Washington DC. Now, turning west, they traveled to the Ohio River and then by various boats, all the way to the Mississippi River. After visiting a prairie in Illinois, they turned back, to the East, with a side trip to Niagara Falls, Montreal and Quebec City, before returning to New York and sailing back to Liverpool. It was now May. After such a long and arduous trip, on various uncomfortable conveyances, they were tired of traveling, felt unwell and were eager to return home.
Whew! It was a long and often uncomfortable trip. Fortunately, the return voyage across the water was relatively peaceful. Surprisingly, during his stay in New England, he visited several prisons, an institution for the deaf and a mental institute. Apparently, he wanted to compare the US treatment of people to that of those in England. He was mostly pleased with what he saw. He met various political figures, attended plays and many, welcoming dinners. People were eager to meet him and hear his opinions.
On the whole, Dickens was not overly impressed with the US. He had strong negative opinions about slavery, and choose to not visit the South for that reason and because of the heat. Many Americans were displeased with his negative comments, and made it known. He did return to the US until 1867.
American Notes is often seen as an early example of travel writing. He does give his readers an interesting view of the everyday people and the landscape. To me, the most interesting parts were the challenges of travel, as it was usually uncomfortable, and the various types of conveyances he used.
I read American Notes with the Dickensians group on ŷ. John, our discussion leader, provided excellent background information and a good summary of each chapter. Bionic Jean, the group moderator, added more, and the group members made many thoughtful comments. Reading together with them definitely enhanced my appreciation of the book and led me to a greater understanding of Dickens and his trip. My thanks to all who participated!
April 14, 2025
In 1842 Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine travelled to the U.S. and Canada, this is a collection of his writing about that experience. I had a hard time getting through the first chapter, which encompasses his boat journey from England to America. They made the journey in winter, and the travel was really rough. Once he lands on terra firma though the book was wonderful!
If you are an American, be forewarned, he's not very keen on America. He has lots of criticisms of what he sees and most of it is warranted. For example, he goes on and on about the habit of American men using chewing tobacco, which made them spit all the time and everywhere. He does love New England and writes glowingly about that place.
He spends lots of time touring prisons and insane asylums, which surprised me, but then I remembered this is a writer who always speaks for the poor and helpless, who tries to make society acknowledge their problems and pushes people to do better towards one another, so perhaps it's not surprising he visited these places at all.
His concluding chapter on Slavery is excellent, though hard to read. At one point he prints verbatim newspaper ads seeking runaway slaves. I must confess I did not read them all. It was simply too much to bear. Then he prints verbatim paragraphs about white Americans committing violence against each other, and those I could not read either. Even though I skipped these sections, I still understood the point Dickens was making about the evil of slavery, begetting more evil, and pleading for an end to it all. It was brilliant writing.
In his "Concluding Remarks" he writes about the licentious press and the American's feeling of "universal distrust", and admiration of "smart men" even though they are criminals. Sadly this all rang true as something America suffers from even today.
In the end, I'm so glad to have read this. How wonderful to read a first person account of my country in 1842. Made even more special that it was written by a well-travelled Englishman, whose foreign view was most illuminating.
If you are an American, be forewarned, he's not very keen on America. He has lots of criticisms of what he sees and most of it is warranted. For example, he goes on and on about the habit of American men using chewing tobacco, which made them spit all the time and everywhere. He does love New England and writes glowingly about that place.
He spends lots of time touring prisons and insane asylums, which surprised me, but then I remembered this is a writer who always speaks for the poor and helpless, who tries to make society acknowledge their problems and pushes people to do better towards one another, so perhaps it's not surprising he visited these places at all.
His concluding chapter on Slavery is excellent, though hard to read. At one point he prints verbatim newspaper ads seeking runaway slaves. I must confess I did not read them all. It was simply too much to bear. Then he prints verbatim paragraphs about white Americans committing violence against each other, and those I could not read either. Even though I skipped these sections, I still understood the point Dickens was making about the evil of slavery, begetting more evil, and pleading for an end to it all. It was brilliant writing.
In his "Concluding Remarks" he writes about the licentious press and the American's feeling of "universal distrust", and admiration of "smart men" even though they are criminals. Sadly this all rang true as something America suffers from even today.
In the end, I'm so glad to have read this. How wonderful to read a first person account of my country in 1842. Made even more special that it was written by a well-travelled Englishman, whose foreign view was most illuminating.
April 11, 2025
Charles Dickens wrote this travelogue detailing the visit he and his wife Catherine made to America (the U.S. and Canada) in 1842. In the U.S., they traveled by boat, train and coach from Boston to St. Louis along the banks of the Mississippi. The trip was a pleasure trip, but Dickens also hoped to convince the U.S. government to enact copyright laws which would enable him to earn royalties from the sale of his vastly popular novels.
This was a time of great upheaval in the United States as the country was in the throes of a great depression following the financial Panic of 1837. Many Americans, who had lost everything, uprooted their families and moved westward in an attempt to farm land given to them through the Homestead Act. Although I don’t think Dickens understood what he was witnessing, I found it fascinating to get his non-American insights into what these Americans were going through.
It was also a time of great upheaval in the United States as the country was being torn apart by the continuing practice of slavery in the South. Dickens was shaken to the core in witnessing slavery first-hand and realizing that he was unwittingly a participant in it when slaves provided some of the services he enjoyed. In his travelogue, Dickens used his well-known voice for the downtrodden to expose what he saw and heard in an attempt to change men’s hearts and abolish the ownership of human beings. Witnessing slavery definitely changed the enjoyment of his trip and the tone of Dickens� travelogue, and it was obvious he was ready to return home to England.
Although I enjoyed Dickens� views on what he was witnessing, I felt he was being overly critical of other aspects of America, which had to do with the fact that America was a new country and was developing its own personality away from England.
This was a time of great upheaval in the United States as the country was in the throes of a great depression following the financial Panic of 1837. Many Americans, who had lost everything, uprooted their families and moved westward in an attempt to farm land given to them through the Homestead Act. Although I don’t think Dickens understood what he was witnessing, I found it fascinating to get his non-American insights into what these Americans were going through.
It was also a time of great upheaval in the United States as the country was being torn apart by the continuing practice of slavery in the South. Dickens was shaken to the core in witnessing slavery first-hand and realizing that he was unwittingly a participant in it when slaves provided some of the services he enjoyed. In his travelogue, Dickens used his well-known voice for the downtrodden to expose what he saw and heard in an attempt to change men’s hearts and abolish the ownership of human beings. Witnessing slavery definitely changed the enjoyment of his trip and the tone of Dickens� travelogue, and it was obvious he was ready to return home to England.
Although I enjoyed Dickens� views on what he was witnessing, I felt he was being overly critical of other aspects of America, which had to do with the fact that America was a new country and was developing its own personality away from England.
July 7, 2014
After enjoying the scrumptious meal of a Dickens novel, I rise from the table sighing with content, full to the brim and happy. However, I go on to other things and seem to forget in the meantime, how wonderful that meal was.
So it is with American Notes. I had forgotten how superb Dickens' writing is, how lush the prose, how subtle the hints, how witty the criticisms. Now I remember.
In 1842 Dickens spent 6 months touring the United States. This was not a reading tour, just a visit to see the country. He saw the great cities of the East, refused to go any further south than Richmond, Virginia and travelled as far west as St. Louis. He spent time in Canada as well, circling back to New York City to embark back to England.
He didn't like what he saw. The only time he comes right out and rants is on the subject of slavery. He devotes an entire chapter to it, and, as I said, refused to go any further south than Richmond.
He didn't like all the spitting American men did, either, but it didn't raise his hackles; it aroused his sarcastic humor.
And he was very disturbed by a penitentiary in Pennsylvania that kept all of its prisoners in solitary confinement for their entire sentences. They learned a trade such as weaving, sewing or shoe making, but saw no other human than the one that brought them their meals. Dickens talked with some of these prisoners and was especially interested in those who were nearly ready to leave. His view was that they were NOT ready to leave and would not be able to join in productive society. The depth of this view can be seen in Dr. Manette in Tale of Two Cities. Upon being released from prisoner, where he has been in solitary confinement continuously, he has to be taken back to a small hovel at the top of an "apartment" building, left alone in the dark, pursuing his "profession" of making shoes. This portrait is not something Dickens made up - it came straight out of the prisons of America.
Dickens never straightforwardly criticized America; he simply wrote cunningly funny stories about his adventures. And they are delightful! It's hard not to know what he feels. For instance, here is what he says about the American trait of Universal Distrust:
Any man who attains a high place among you, from the President
downwards, may date his downfall from that moment; for any
printed lie that any notorious villain pens, although it
militate directly against the character and conduct of a life,
appeals at once to your distrust and is believed. You will
strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and confidence,
however fairly won and well deserved; but you will swallow a
whole caravan of camels if they be laden with unworthy doubts
and mean suspicion.
Sounds a lot like today......
If you love Dickens or if you enjoy reading travelogues, pick this one up soon.
So it is with American Notes. I had forgotten how superb Dickens' writing is, how lush the prose, how subtle the hints, how witty the criticisms. Now I remember.
In 1842 Dickens spent 6 months touring the United States. This was not a reading tour, just a visit to see the country. He saw the great cities of the East, refused to go any further south than Richmond, Virginia and travelled as far west as St. Louis. He spent time in Canada as well, circling back to New York City to embark back to England.
He didn't like what he saw. The only time he comes right out and rants is on the subject of slavery. He devotes an entire chapter to it, and, as I said, refused to go any further south than Richmond.
He didn't like all the spitting American men did, either, but it didn't raise his hackles; it aroused his sarcastic humor.
And he was very disturbed by a penitentiary in Pennsylvania that kept all of its prisoners in solitary confinement for their entire sentences. They learned a trade such as weaving, sewing or shoe making, but saw no other human than the one that brought them their meals. Dickens talked with some of these prisoners and was especially interested in those who were nearly ready to leave. His view was that they were NOT ready to leave and would not be able to join in productive society. The depth of this view can be seen in Dr. Manette in Tale of Two Cities. Upon being released from prisoner, where he has been in solitary confinement continuously, he has to be taken back to a small hovel at the top of an "apartment" building, left alone in the dark, pursuing his "profession" of making shoes. This portrait is not something Dickens made up - it came straight out of the prisons of America.
Dickens never straightforwardly criticized America; he simply wrote cunningly funny stories about his adventures. And they are delightful! It's hard not to know what he feels. For instance, here is what he says about the American trait of Universal Distrust:
Any man who attains a high place among you, from the President
downwards, may date his downfall from that moment; for any
printed lie that any notorious villain pens, although it
militate directly against the character and conduct of a life,
appeals at once to your distrust and is believed. You will
strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and confidence,
however fairly won and well deserved; but you will swallow a
whole caravan of camels if they be laden with unworthy doubts
and mean suspicion.
Sounds a lot like today......
If you love Dickens or if you enjoy reading travelogues, pick this one up soon.
March 25, 2013
The famous quarrel between Charles Dickens and America. Can't say he didn't take on a worthy opponent...I mean, a whole country? Dickens, as usual, is larger than the life he portrays.
Though Dickens primarily made his views known through works of fiction, and many of his arguments with America were laid out similarly in Martin Chuzzlewit, it seems he couldn't keep from expounding upon those ideas in a full-blown work. As a whole, Dickens admires America and knows that America's brand of democracy is the future of democracy -- which scares him frightfully. Like a mother watching her child become an adult, he offers lots of criticism and advice. From a review:
""But on the other hand, his whole point against the American experiment was this -- that if it ignored certain ancient English contributions it would go to pieces for lack of them. Of these the first was good manners and the second individual liberty -- liberty, that is, to speak and write against the trend of the majority."
In a time when good manners have all but washed down the drain and certain political mindsets threaten to stifle the minority opinion, it is rather depressing to read this advice from the distant past. America, widely perceived as a rebellious child, makes good on her image once again. Perhaps, though, she'll make it through adolescence and see the wisdom in mother's advice.
Though Dickens primarily made his views known through works of fiction, and many of his arguments with America were laid out similarly in Martin Chuzzlewit, it seems he couldn't keep from expounding upon those ideas in a full-blown work. As a whole, Dickens admires America and knows that America's brand of democracy is the future of democracy -- which scares him frightfully. Like a mother watching her child become an adult, he offers lots of criticism and advice. From a review:
""But on the other hand, his whole point against the American experiment was this -- that if it ignored certain ancient English contributions it would go to pieces for lack of them. Of these the first was good manners and the second individual liberty -- liberty, that is, to speak and write against the trend of the majority."
In a time when good manners have all but washed down the drain and certain political mindsets threaten to stifle the minority opinion, it is rather depressing to read this advice from the distant past. America, widely perceived as a rebellious child, makes good on her image once again. Perhaps, though, she'll make it through adolescence and see the wisdom in mother's advice.
December 5, 2014
This is a travelogue recorded on a trip Dickens took to the United States. Interestingly, after a lighthearted and exaggerated story of the adventure of crossing, the visit focuses on hospitals, homes for deaf, blind and finally, prisons. This seemed like he was traveling as a journalist writing for serialized publication - which he may have been. Never the less, he describes where he stays and the people he meets which is delightful. The last quarter of the book is less focused as he travels west and then through Canada for his own enjoyment. At the end, Dickens returns to the serious tone of the earlier part of the book with a diatribe against slavery and guns.
I enjoy Dickens' style and it was delightful to hear him refer to American cities and towns I know and would have never imagined him visiting. Of course there must have been 19th century Englishmen who visited the states, but I kept giggling imagining Bob Cratchet of Camden Town rambling through Washington appalled by slavery and the spitting of tobacco chewing politicians. The contrast of the worlds I associate Dickens with made his portrait of America come alive in ways I am sure he never expected.
Frequently history and historical accounts are stranger than fiction. It's not that this particular travelogue is strange, but if this had been fiction, it wouldn't have more entertaining.
I enjoy Dickens' style and it was delightful to hear him refer to American cities and towns I know and would have never imagined him visiting. Of course there must have been 19th century Englishmen who visited the states, but I kept giggling imagining Bob Cratchet of Camden Town rambling through Washington appalled by slavery and the spitting of tobacco chewing politicians. The contrast of the worlds I associate Dickens with made his portrait of America come alive in ways I am sure he never expected.
Frequently history and historical accounts are stranger than fiction. It's not that this particular travelogue is strange, but if this had been fiction, it wouldn't have more entertaining.
August 23, 2020
Sections of the book I enjoyed very much, but I found the book overall very uneven. I think this may because it was published as a series in the mid- 19th C. I enjoyed best sailing with Dickens and his family or riding in the stage coach or moving slowly up the canal in a boat. One of the stories was about how institutionalized children are treated in America during the 19th C. Dickens comments critically about slavery, and portrays the passengers on the canal boat quite negatively -- yet, much of his observations seemed spot on to me. I could see his novels in this writing. The dialog was often terrific and at times I laughed out loud. I was considering sending it to my 90 year old step father, but I did not, because as I mentioned--the book is too uneven. Still, this book gets a 4, a strong 4 from me. I also learned some interesting facets about Charles Dickens-- though poverty and societal ills show up in his novels repeatedly, I di not realize how much of a crusader for these issues he was.
January 18, 2013
It has some consistency problems but the observations are still very relevant. Dickens worried about American violence, distrust of politicians, uncivil political discourse, boom and bust financial schemes, devotion to money making over ethics... Sound familiar? which is both depressing and as well as comforting. We've been slogging along with these boat anchors around our neck for a long time and we still seem to make substantial forward progress. His observation of small details is delightful. He has problems when he can't seem to make up his mind whether he admires the US or is sorely disappointed because it didn't live up to his expectations. Still a very worthwhile read and I had forgotten how delightful his writing is.
Read
June 10, 2011Notable mostly for its insightful discussion of the torture inherent in solitary confinement. (Dickens visited numerous prisons and asylums, presumably as part of the purpose of the voyage.) Uneven in the quality of its descriptive passages, some small number of which sing with wit and vivid depiction but others of which drag. The description of the workings of Washington, D.C. is not to be missed, particularly by those patriots who tend to forget that the country was forged by tobacco-chewing knuckle-heads.
September 20, 2011
A really interesting book written by Charles Dickens about his visit to the U.S. in the late 1840's early 1850's. An outsider's view of the good and the bad about the U.S. a few years before the beginning of the Great Civil War. Many surprising facts. Dickens had especially strong views about slavery in America.
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