Transcribed from the 1913 Chapman & Hall, Ltd. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
AMERICAN NOTES
FOR
GENERAL CIRCULATION
AND
PICTURES FROM ITALY [1]
BY
CHARLES DICKENS
WITH 8 ILLUSTRATIONS BY
MARCUS STONE, R.A.
LONDON
CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd.
1913
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO
THOSE FRIENDS OF MINE
IN AMERICA
WHO, GIVING ME A WELCOME I MUST EVER
GRATEFULLY AND PROUDLY REMEMBER,
LEFT MY JUDGEMENT
FREE;
AND WHO, LOVING THEIR COUNTRY, CAN BEAR
THE TRUTH, WHEN IT IS TOLD GOOD
HUMOUREDLY, AND IN A
KIND SPIRIT.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF “AMERICAN NOTES”
It is nearly eight years since this book was first published. I present it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my opinions as it expresses, are quite unaltered too.
My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any existence not in my imagination. They can examine for themselves whether there has been anything in the public career of that country during these past eight years, or whether there is anything in its present position, at home or abroad, which suggests that those influences and tendencies really do exist. As they find the fact, they will judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong-going in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such thing, they will consider me altogether mistaken.