A broad overview of certain American topics and issues. Clearly reflects the author’s storytelling inclination.

I think you have to start with the understanding that this is a non-fiction piece, and perhaps cut the guy some slack because he wasn’t a non-fiction writer. Sure, sure, he started out that way, but really even by the time he got to “Sketches by Boz” he was a fiction writer. And while he may have done research for the subsequent novels, there’s a big difference between that and writing non-fiction.

As such, I think he was presented with the problem of how to talk about what he was seeing. On top of that is the fact that whatever opinion the US public had of Dickens – one they probably confused with the narrator of the books – there was no way they were going to be pleasantly surprised with the real man. Especially since he was more than a bit of a snob where Americans were concerned, and as he grew horrified by their inability to treat him, or anyone as far as he could tell, as their social superior.

On the other hand, he didn’t really make it easier on himself. I mean, when you go on vacation to a new country, is your first stop the prisons, lunatic asylums and homes for the blind? I know, I know, he visited these places in England as well, and it was fashionable to do so. But come on. America is waiting to see what the great man will say about their nation – and he paints them a picture of morons, thieves and madmen. I’m not saying we’re not – I’m just saying you can’t paint that picture and expect to be cheered.

There is the outside chance that Dickens was doing all this on purpose, of course. He’d been fighting with American publishers for years about the fact that they infringed the copyright of all his books, and that he never saw a penny from all the US sales of his work. And this was a point he made time and again in speeches on his tour. So it is possible that he was intentionally writing a book that he felt would not have a market in the US – the logic being – well, if they won’t pay me for what I write anyway, I might as well write something they won’t publish.

Unfortunately, they did.

Will this keep me from reading more Dickens? Hardly. But I can heartily recommend that unless you’re a scholar of the era or the great man, I think you can pass this book by.

One side note – apparently while Dickens was in Baltimore he met briefly in his rooms with a young American author. The two did not hit it off, though both were quite cordial and polite. The author? Edgar Allan Poe.

I hadn’t read any Dickens for years, having disliked his style when forced to read it as a young student. Nor had I read any of his nonfiction, so I was pleasantly surprised by the wit and humor in this travelogue. As always, he gets into granular detail on anything - from boat accommodation to prison practices - that interests him, but his wry observations of American mannerisms and the physical discomforts of 19th century travel are hilarious.

Typical of many writers of his time, the book ranges from humor to pathos to righteous indignation from one chapter to the next. It culminates in a chapter condemning slavery that is utterly uncompromising, earning him the wrath of many Americans, and the admiration of some, including this reviewer.

Not as good as Twain's travel books but still very interesting.

A fascinating piece of research for Dickens Fair, a humorous read, a fascinating window on the United States of 170 years ago...and a scathing diatribe on slavery and human rights. This little-read and atypical Dickens outing is a hidden gem.

I took my time with this delightful travelogue of Charles Dickens’s visit to America in the late nineteenth century. In each city, he visited hospitals, schools, asylums, etc. The descriptions were such a history lesson. The font itself is intimidating, but it is actually very easy and entertaining to read. I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

Dickens traveled to American in 1842, filled with much anticipation and excitement but also, I suspect, some preconceived notions. Certainly, the resulting volume, "American Notes," reveals a Dickens disaffected by some of what he saw, bemused at times, and thoroughly outraged (and outrageous) at others. If we look back to his earliest works, "Sketches by Boz" and "The Pickwick Papers," then a satirical portrayal of American society and its inhabitants should not be surprising. I think what is surprising, for me at least, is the overall tone of this book. It is much less humorous and a great deal more condescending than previous works. This is the beginning of the cranky Dickens, the one who has become pedantic, judgmental, and condemning as opposed to the Dickens of the sly wink, the wry commentary, and the broad caricature. Nevertheless, this is a valuable read for the travelogue and observations that Dickens provides. It is also important to note how wildly popular and well-known Dickens was, making his celebrity experience vastly different than the average traveler would have encountered. Overall, this is a quick read which reveals not only much about America in the 1840s, but also about Dickens himself and the worldview of an Englishman at that time.

Reread I reread this in anticipation of an upcoming reread of [b:Martin Chuzzlewit|1990|Martin Chuzzlewit|Charles Dickens|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334392783l/1990._SY75_.jpg|901325].

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.