American Notes for General Circulation. (Travel in America) [Hardcover]

Charles Dickens (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1429002824 | ISBN-13: 978-1429002820

Charles Dickens entered the world of travel writing with his 1850 work, American Notes for General Circulation. Dickens' travels were part of the trend of European writers, such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Harriet Martineau, who came to America to comment on her successes and failures in the experiment of democracy. His work, reflecting his 5-month trip to America in 1842, proves to be a testing ground for his own democratic and radical ideals. Traveling mainly along the East Coast and Great Lakes regions, his writing style was that of critical observer or reporter, rather than that of a tourist. Dickens visited prisons and mental asylums and parodied local manners, including tobacco spitting and rural dialects. Slavery proved to be abhorrent to Dickens, and the continuation of the institution in America, as well as the free availability of bootlegged copies of his work, colored his more positive observations of American society. His commentary about Wall Street, the press, and the prison system, while often satiric and funny, have a thoroughly modern appeal. While originally revered and given a hero's welcome, Dickens' interactions with the American press, especially in relation to his views on America's lack of copyright law, tarnished his impressions of America and America's impressions of him. Though his travels, Dickens became sensitized to the differences between the ideals of democracy and equality and the application of those ideals in American society. It is these differences that came to be elucidated in the development of the darker, more cynical world-view of his later novels.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Charles Dickens is one of the greatest and most widely read of novelists writing in English. "Great Expectations" is only one of some fifteen novels, all of whose titles are common currency and all of which have been repeatedly dramatized for stage, screen and radio.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 196 pages
• Publisher: Applewood Books (January 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1429002824
• ISBN-13: 978-1429002820
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,605,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)