American Notes and Pictures from Italy (Everyman Dickens) - Softcover

Dickens, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0460876856 ISBN 13: 9780460876858

Publisher: Phoenix, 1997

Synopsis

"American Notes" was the result of the author's five-month trip to America in 1842. Dickens's travelogue includes the glitter of Boston; a Broadway swarming with hogs; a gruesome penitentiary in Philadelphia; Cincinnati, Louisville, and St Louis; railways and steamboats. Its publication was greeted with dismay: what Dickens described as 'honest and true' was regarded in America as 'a compound of egotism, coxcombry and cockneyism', the product of 'the most coarse, vulgar, impudent and superficial' writer ever to visit the country. "Pictures from Italy" is a colourful account of a tour made in 1844. This collectable series is the most comprehensive illustrated Dickens available. Each volume includes up to seventy-six early engravings, many of which appeared in the first editons of these works. The text is derived from the Charles Dickens Edition, revised by the author in the 1860s.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. In 1824, his father was imprisoned for debt, so Charles was sent to work in a shoe-dye factory. He later became a clerk in a law firm, a shorthand reporter in the courts, and a parliamentary and newspaper reporter. In 1833, Dickens began to contribute short stories and essays to periodicals, heralding the start of a glittering and prolific literary career. He married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, with whom he had nine surviving children before they separated in 1858. Dickens died suddenly at home on June 9, 1870, leaving behind an internationally acclaimed canon of work, including Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838), David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-53), Little Dorrit (1855-57), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-61) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-65). He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Michael Slater is Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck College in the University of London. He was editor of The Dickensian (1968-77) and President of the International Dickens Fellowship (1988-90). He has published many books and articles on Dickens.

From the Back Cover:

Dickens went to America in 1842 expecting to find a brave new world whose institutions embodied his own political views. The Americans expected him to extol their new nation. Dickens, however, became deeply disturbed by American culture. American Notes attempts to portray fairly the young Republic's new cities, strange landscapes and bustling people, but is coloured by Dicken's doubts about the failings of democratic politics in an egalitarian society.

About this edition

• Publisher: Phoenix
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0460876856
• ISBN 13: 9780460876858
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448