A review by ruthiella
American Notes for General Circulation: Revised Edition by Charles Dickens

3.0

This was the last book I needed to read to complete the Back to the Classics Challenge 2015 hosted at the blog Books and Chocolate. The category in this case was a Non-Fiction Classic. I am a big fan of Dickens’ fiction and I know that much of this U.S. visit served as an inspiration for part of Martin Chuzzelwit, which was the first Dickens’ novel I ever read, so I was keen to check this title out. Generally I liked it, but I still prefer his fiction. Famously American Notes engendered quite a bit of controversy and ill-feeling on this site of the Atlantic at the time it was published. However, as an American reading this over 150 years later, I don’t feel that Dickens’ was particularly unfair or even mean-spirited in his critiques of the U.S. A lot of what he found distasteful: the obsession with money, regardless of whether it was earned honestly or not, the obsession with partisan politics, etc. has not changed much in the intervening century and a half.