Synopses & Reviews
Charles Dickens was the most famous of many travelers of his time who journeyed to America, curious about the revolutionary new civilization that had captured the English imagination. His frank, often humorous descriptions in his 1842 account cover everything from his uncomfortable sea voyage to an ecstatic narrative of his visit to Niagara Falls. Yet Dickens is also critical of American society, its preoccupation with money, and reliance on slavery, as well as the rude, unsavory manners of Americans and their corrupt press. Above all, American Notes is a lively chronicle of what was for Dickens an illuminating encounter with the New World.
Review
"The dullness of the American Notes -- dull in the sense of being 'Notes' by Dickens -- was due to his determination not to refer to the individuals he met, and not to record any of those overwhelmingly enthusiastic receptions and dinners which were so freely given in his honor....There are passages here and there -- such as the nobly pathetic one describing the emigrants he observed on the steamer between Montreal and Quebec -- which are in his best vein; but generally the account of his adventures by stage and steamboat is but the disappointing record of 'a most scattering and unsure observance.'" Edwin P. Whipple, The Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic Monthly review)
Synopsis
A fascinating account of nineteenth-century America sketched with Charles Dickens's characteristic wit and charm
When Charles Dickens set out for America in 1842 he was the most famous man of his day to travel there - curious about the revolutionary new civilization that had captured the English imagination. His frank and often humorous descriptions cover everything from his comically wretched sea voyage to his sheer astonishment at the magnificence of the Niagara Falls, while he also visited hospitals, prisons and law courts and found them exemplary. But Dickens's opinion of America as a land ruled by money, built on slavery, with a corrupt press and unsavoury manners, provoked a hostile reaction on both sides of the Atlantic. American Notes is an illuminating account of a great writer's revelatory encounter with the New World. In her introduction, Patricia Ingham examines the response the book received when it was published, and compares it with similar travel writings of the period and with Dickens's fiction, in particular Martin Chuzzlewit. This edition includes an updated chronology, appendices and notes.
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Synopsis
'Like Shakespeare, Dickens was able to embrace a whole world' John Mortimer
When Charles Dickens set out for America in 1842, he was the most famous man of his day to make the journey, and embarked on his travels with an intense curiosity. His frank descriptions cover everything from his comically wretched sea voyage to his sheer astonishment at Niagara Falls, while he also visited hospitals, prisons and law courts. But Dickens's depiction of America as a land ruled by money, built on slavery, with a corrupt press and unsavoury manners, provoked a hostile reaction on both sides of the Atlantic. American Notes is an illuminating account of a great writer's revelatory encounter with the New World.
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Patricia Ingham
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. xxxii-xxxiv).
About the Author
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation,but also the horror of the infamous debtors prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and “slave” factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorneys clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.
Patricia Ingham is senior research fellow and reader at St. Anne's College, Oxford. She is the general editor of Thomas Hardy's fiction in Penguin Classics and edited Gaskell's North and South for the series.
Table of Contents
Edited by Patricia Ingham Acknowledgments
A Dickens Chronology
Introduction
Further Reading
A Note on the Text
Map
AMERICAN NOTES
Appendix I: Dickens's Unpublished Introduction of 1842
Appendix II: Dickens's Preface of 1850
Appendix III: Dickens's Postscript of 1868