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Charles Dickens’s “American Notes” is perhaps his best non-fiction book

One of the joys of our new era of e-books, if you like books as physical objects and as texts, is that one can easily download from the Internet Archive and other digital libraries a PDF copy of a century-old book that is considered “rare. “in the trade (I’m thinking here of anything that could cost you more than $ 250 in a New York or London bookstore) and enjoy it almost as if you had the physical copy in your hands, although, unfortunately, without the smell of leather or the feel of paper. But also, fortunately, without the risk of accidentally damaging an object that the years have made fragile.

My Favorite Edition of Charles Dickens American notes is the John W. Lovell edition printed in New York on Vesey Street in 1883. I have read this version in an East Coast university library in the 1970s and more recently on one of my desks as a PDF, although I also downloaded the Project Gutenberg edition (which you will find as the third item on the “Dickens, Charles” list in the Gutenberg catalog) and emailed it to my Kindle so I can more easily read it in bed. Of course, Amazon has an edition of this and all the other works of Dickens downloadable directly from the Amazon catalog, accessible via WiFi from your own Kindle.

Dickens’s reputation never peaked in his life, but simply continued to build until he was considered a kind of God of literature, a giant among writers. That reputation was already well established in England and America in 1842 when he made his first trip to the United States (he would return a quarter of a century later, in 1867). His lovely young wife Catherine, whom he had married six years earlier, accompanied him. Catherine Thompson Hogarth Dickens was the charming daughter of an influential London publisher, George Hogarth, a fact that did not harm her husband’s literary career.

Dickens was only thirty when he and Catherine boarded the new RMS. Britannia on January 3, 1842, a 1200-ton, 207-foot-long wheeled truck bound for Boston and Halifax. Already under his literary belt were The Pickwick Papers, Oliver twist (that young Queen Victoria lit candles late at night to read, so engrossed was she with this story of poverty so close to her London palace), Nicholas Nickleby, old curio shop, and Barnaby rudge.

Tea Britannia it moved like a snail by our standards today: it could produce around 750 horsepower with its two-cylinder coal-fired steam engine (roughly the power of two large American passenger cars), moving its 115 passengers and 80 crew at a maximum speed of 8.5 knots across the Atlantic. At that rate, it took 12 days to cross the ocean; Dickens was sick the whole time. He vowed never to travel the ocean by steam again and, in fact, returned to England months later sailing. High technology was not his thing, at least when it came to the sea; He was always very fond of the railways.

One of the motivations for his trip to the United States, beyond his limitless curiosity about everything American (especially slavery, which he condemns in the last chapter of American notes), was his concern about American piracy of his works. The United States was then a nation, like China today, that did not respect intellectual property rights very much. Dickens’ novels were widely pirated here, without paying royalties to their author.

Dickens’s 2011 biography of Claire Tomalin tells us that the author spent four weeks in Manhattan lecturing American publishers and publishers on the value of international copyright conventions. Using his literary fame, he was able to persuade some two dozen American literary heavyweights, including Washington Irving, to draft a letter to Congress in support of such a move, although he was less successful in persuading the press to do so. join him. In those days, writers who achieved some level of fame were considered to have sufficiently benefited from their literary endeavors. It was considered in bad taste, even left, expect a big payday too.

Every time i read American notes I am struck by how timeless Dickens’s voice is, almost as if he were writing contemporaneously for Monthly Atlantic gold Harper’s. This is so different from his novels, that they have a 19th century feel that reflects his love for the picaresque style of 18th century British fiction that he tried to reinvent in his own time, a literary style that an American reader can take, even a dedicated one like me, a time to re-enter. Not so with his nonfiction (of which this is just one example: Dickens wrote while breathing, not as work, but as a way of being alive. It is unlikely that a day has passed without spending time with his stained notebooks. ink. ).

Take a look at this fascinating description of a visit to Niagara Falls. Although there are some grammar and punctuation “hints” that betray its mid-19th century authorship, I am struck by how fresh this writing is.

These paragraphs are taken from Chapter 14 of Lovell’s edition:

“We called Erie City at eight at night and stayed there for an hour. Between five and six the next morning we arrived in Buffalo, where we had breakfast. And being too close to Great Falls to wait patiently anywhere. Elsewhere, he left by train that same morning at nine o’clock for Niagara.

“It was a miserable day: cold and raw, a damp mist falling, and the trees in that northern region quite bare and wintry. Whenever the train stopped, I heard the roar and constantly strained my eyes in the direction where I knew The Falls. they must be, seeing the river rolling towards them, expecting at all times to contemplate the dew. A few minutes after our stop, not before, I saw two great white clouds that rose slowly and majestically from the depths of the earth. That was all, we finally got out, and then, for the first time, I heard the strong rush of water and felt the ground shaking under my feet.

“The shore is very steep and slippery from the rain and melted ice. I hardly know how I got down, but soon I was at the bottom and climbing, with two English officers who were crossing and had joined me, on some rocks, deafened by the noise, half blinded by the dew, and wet to the skin. We were at the foot of the American Falls. I could see an immense torrent of water rushing down from a great height, but I had no idea of ​​shape, or location, or anything that is not a vague immensity. “

Immensity of waves indeed! Could anyone do this better in a modern travel guide?

Charles Dickens was the most popular novelist of his time and is quite possibly the best known British writer, even today. His works have always been available in print editions and now also in timelessly preserved electronic copies that anyone can download free of charge.

However, I think his non-fiction work, especially American notes, his magnificent examination of a former British colony that he admired and viewed with a critical kind of love, have never caught up with the popularity of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Tiny Tim, or Ebenezer Scrooge (was there ever someone with that gift to name their creations?). It’s a shame, because frankly they are easier for modern readers to assimilate, and this particular book paints a fascinating picture of the United States on the brink of civil war.

Modern readers will find American notes accessible and readable in a way that will delight them. I hope this book achieves another century of great success. And I celebrate the fact that anyone with internet access can read not only the electronic text of the book, but can also download a PDF copy of an early edition, a bound text that most of us would not choose to spend several. hundreds. dollars to own and revel in the “feel” of the typography and the organization of the printed page. It is a book that is so easy to enjoy: Charles Dickens wrote nonfiction that deserves as much admiration as his novels.