Dickens
visited the United States in 1842. Though somewhat eventful, it's fair to say that the trip was
not to Dickens' liking. For one thing, the American press tore into him for what they perceived
as Dickens' money-grubbing tendencies in his campaign to reform the copyright laws. Though
Dickens' books sold widely in the United States the absence of legally-enforceable international
copyright law meant that he made very little money as it was all too easy for pirated versions
of his works to be published. Dickens was perfectly justified, then, in his complaints, but many
Americans were none too sympathetic over the spectacle of an already rich man demanding more
money.
As Dickens' American journey progressed, things got even worse. The
Republic of the writer's imagination bore no resemblance to the real-life America of the mid
19th century. Dickens was particularly scathing of the American political system, which he saw
as tending towards bitter division and paralysis. He was also less than enamored of the behavior
of Senators, whose violent denunciations of their opponentsand, in some cases, acts of
violenceutterly horrified Dickens. He'd never seen anything like this on the floor of the House
of Commons in all his years there as a parliamentary reporter.
All in all,
Dickens couldn't wait to leave after his six months in the United States. And although Americans
would continue to count themselves among his most avid readers, most of them were only too glad
to see him go.
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