Dickens in America

Learn more about Charles Dickens' two trips to America

Suppressed Introductory Chapter of American Notes

Charles Dickens wrote an introductory chapter to American Notes that his friend and future biographer, John Forster, talked him out of including in the published book. Forster felt that the chapter should be withheld until sufficient time had passed to diffuse ill feelings over some of Dickens' criticism of America. Forster included the chapter in his biography The Life of Charles Dickens, published after Dickens death (Forster, 1899, p. 304).

See a portion of the suppressed chapter

The Britannia

On completion of the dangerous voyage aboard the Britannia Charles Dickens made a presentation of silver plate to Captain Hewett on behalf of the passengers.
Read Dickens' speech

American Notes for General Circulation

American Notes - Published in one volume in October 1842

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Chronicle of Charles Dickens' first American visit in 1842. Written largely from letters that Dickens sent home to his friend John Forster, American Notes sold well but received negative reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. American readers were put off by Dickens' criticism of the American press, American manners, slavery, and his preoccupation with international copyright laws.

English readers saw nothing novel in his matter-of-fact observations. Today American Notes offers an interesting glimpse of an America experiencing the growing pains that would eventually lead to civil war.

Many of Dickens' observations of the time are hilariously quaint today. In Washington he visited President John Tyler and the US Capitol building where he was appalled at the American male passion for chewing tobacco:

"Both Houses are handsomely carpeted; but the state to which these carpets are reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon with which every honourable member is accommodated, and the extraordinary improvements on the pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon it in every direction, do not admit of being described. I will merely observe, that I strongly recommend all strangers not to look at the floor; and if they happen to drop anything, though it be their purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any account.

It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, to say the least, to see so many honourable members with swelled faces; and it is scarcely less remarkable to discover that this appearance is caused by the quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within the hollow of the cheek. It is strange enough, too, to see an honourable gentleman leaning back in his tilted chair, with his legs on the desk before him, shaping a convenient 'plug' with his penknife, and, when it is quite ready for use, shooting the old one from his mouth as from a pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its place" (American Notes-Pictures From Italy, p. 122).

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