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Dickens-XII
Dickens XIII
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American Notes for
General Circulation
by Charles Dickens
London: Chapman and Hall, 1842. First edition, First issue.
Two volumes bound in brown cloth.
Dickens wrote this work after a five month visit to America in 1842. Wildly popular
with the American public, Dickens received a hero's welcome and for the first two months
of his visit wrote glowing reports in letters home. However, the American press reacted
negatively and vociferously to Dickens' views on international copyright law, and Dickens
suffered a change of heart about Americans and American culture in general, which American
Notes reflects. The novel received extraordinary criticism in the United States, and at
best, is considered cranky and superficial. Edgar Allen Poe, heretofore a great admirer of
Dickens' work, retaliated by writing a parody called "English Notes" under the
pseudonym Quarles Quickens. John Forster, Dickens' close friend and biographer, observed
what many American critics concluded, that Dickens' views on copyright colored his
experiences in America.
Relevant excerpts include:
 | Chapter XII
Dickens's steamboat trip from Cincinatti to St. Louis |
| Chapter XIII
His description of a trip to the prairies east of St. Louis |
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