Dickens on America & the Americans

This celebrated and fully illustrated work brings Dickens into close focus as a key commentator on America. He turns his satiric pen on 19th-century American society during his visits in 1842 and 1867-68. This became what G.K. Chesterton called “Dickens’s great quarrel with America.” It became one of the most celebrated episodes in the history of Anglo-American cultural relations. This large format, fully illustrated book traces the history of Dickens’s fascination with the young republic from his first glorious anticipations, through a period of bitter disillusionment, to a final reassessment and tribute to the nation. Michael Slater, doyen of Dickens scholars and his major modern biographer, argues that Dickens was a natural American...