A review by pattricejones
American Notes for General Circulation by Charles Dickens

Notable mostly for its insightful discussion of the torture inherent in solitary confinement. (Dickens visited numerous prisons and asylums, presumably as part of the purpose of the voyage.) Uneven in the quality of its descriptive passages, some small number of which sing with wit and vivid depiction but others of which drag. The description of the workings of Washington, D.C. is not to be missed, particularly by those patriots who tend to forget that the country was forged by tobacco-chewing knuckle-heads.