Charles Dickens' American Notes

A Portion of the Suppressed Introductory Chapter

Charles Dickens wrote an introductory chapter to American Notes that his friend and future biographer, John Forster, talked him out of including in the published book. Forster felt that the chapter should be withheld until sufficient time had passed to diffuse ill feelings over some of Dickens' criticism of America. Forster included the chapter in his biography The Life of Charles Dickens, published after Dickens' death (Forster, 1899, v. 1, p. 304-307).

American Notes for General Circulation

If this book should fall into the hands of any sensitive American who cannot bear to be told that the working of the institutions of his country is far from perfect; that in spite of the advantage she has over all other nations in the elastic freshness and vigour of her youth, she is far from being a model for the earth to copy; and that even in those pictures of the national manners with which he quarrels most, there is still (after the lapse of several years, each of which may be fairly supposed to have had its stride in improvement) much that is just and true at this hour; let him lay it down, now, for I shall not please him. Of the intelligent, reflecting, and educated among his countrymen, I have no fear; for I have ample reason to believe, after many delightful conversations not easily to be forgotten, that there are very few topics (if any) on which their sentiments differ materially from mine.

I may be asked -- 'If you have been in any respect disappointed in America, and are assured beforehand that the expression of your disappointment will give offence to any class, why do you write at all?' My answer is, that I went there expecting greater things than I found, and resolved as far as in me lay to do justice to the country, at the expense of any (in my view) mistaken or prejudiced statements that might have been made to its disparagement. Coming home with a corrected and sobered judgment, I consider myself no less bound to do justice to what, according to my best means of judgment, I found to be the truth.