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| Charles Dickens in 1842 (Munsey's Magazine. 1893) |
Charles Dickens came to America in 1842 and again in 1867.
He
could barely get through the crowds. People who’d never laid eyes on him acted
like he owed them an evening. The papers looked his wife over, took inventory
of his clothes, and gave his hair a thorough going-over.
Dickens
was twenty-nine. Americans ate up his books.The Pickwick Papers, Oliver
Twist, and The Old Curiosity Shop.
Now,
everyone wanted to get close enough to go home and brag about it.
At
first, Dickens loved the attention. He’d looked forward to visiting America for
years. The newspapers welcomed him with open arms—and took a good, long look
while they had him.
The Boston
Transcript found him “frank, sociable, noble-hearted.” A Worcester
reporter described Dickens’s dress—brown coat, red waistcoat, fancy cravat,
corkscrew curls, forehead, eyeballs, nose, and mouth.
The
verdict was that he had “more animation than grace, and more intelligence than
beauty.”
Welcome
to America, Mr. Dickens.
Over in Lowell, the local Advertiser complained that he had passed its office without calling. “How in the name of reason can he expect puffs and popular applause?” the paper demanded. The editor was willing to recognize genius. Genius just needed to stop by the office first.
New
York went completely overboard.
Charles Dickens in 1839 (Munsey's Magazine. 1907)
On February 14, nearly 3,000 people packed the Park Theatre for a grand “Boz Ball,” named for Dickens’s old pen name. There were glittering decorations, elaborate clothes, and scenes from his novels brought to life.
Dickens
and his wife, Catherine, stayed until they were nearly worn out. The city was
enjoying itself enormously. Whether its guests could still feel their feet was
another question.
Then
came the dinners. America seemed determined to honor Dickens one course at a
time.
At
a New York banquet, Washington Irving took the chair. Who better to welcome the
creator of Pickwick than the creator of Rip Van Winkle?
Unfortunately,
Irving was a miserable speaker. He lost his way, stumbled through his remarks,
and finally sat down.
“There,”
he said, “I told you I should break down, and I’ve done it!”
Dickens
had better luck. The poet Fitz-Greene Halleck called him “a thorough good
fellow” and admired the patience with which he endured being shown off
everywhere.
He
praised Dickens’s speaking, too. “Its charm was not in its words, but in the
manner of saying them.”
Dicken's with a group of American authors during his 1867 visit
(The Outlook. 1912)
That didn’t last. Dickens was about to say something plenty of Americans did not want to hear. At his Boston dinner, he began warmly. His hosts, he said, “flock about me like a host of brothers, and make this place like home.”
Then
he slipped a small bomb onto the table.
“I
would beg leave to whisper in your ear two words: International Copyright.”
You
can almost hear the forks stop.
American
publishers could legally print British books without paying the British authors
royalties. Dickens’s novels sold well enough. The trouble was he made nothing
on the sales.
While
he was touring the country, Americans could buy the complete Barnaby
Rudge in two newspaper issues for sixteen and one-quarter cents. They
could afford to love him. Dickens thought they might also afford to pay him.
At
Hartford, he joked that fame ought to blow from her trumpet “a few notes of a
different kind.” Banknotes would do nicely.
Some
American writers agreed. They had to compete with cheap British reprints.
William Cullen Bryant’s Evening Post backed Dickens. Other
newspaper men were less enthusiastic. They liked their visiting author better
when he was smiling and eating. Not so much when he was talking.
Dickens
kept pushing. He helped get a petition from American authors to Congress, but
little came from it.
Ye Old Curiosity Shop (Munsey's Magazine. September. 1902)
Meanwhile, he tried to squeeze in a look at America between Americans looking at him.
He
visited schools, factories, hospitals, and prisons. At Philadelphia’s Eastern
State Penitentiary, he was horrified by solitary confinement. Reformers might
call it humane. Dickens thought it could wreck a person’s mind.
In
Washington, he encountered another national institution: spitting.
Men
chewed tobacco and let fly. Dickens watched with mounting disgust. Later,
in American Notes, he called the capital the “head-quarters of
tobacco-tinctured saliva.”
He’d
come to inspect democracy and found himself watching the floor.
Virginia
gave him something far uglier to consider. Slavery sickened him. Americans
talked endlessly about liberty while holding people in bondage. No banquet
speech could smooth that over.
Still,
there were moments when America left him speechless for better reasons.
Niagara
Falls overwhelmed him. He spent ten days on the Canadian side, walking,
watching the water, and enjoying some badly needed peace.
Then
he went home and wrote.
American
Notes displeased
Americans. The American scenes in Martin Chuzzlewit made
matters worse.
They
had given him dinners, balls, speeches, and cheers. He had given them back
spittoons, slavery, boasting, and sharp elbows.
Thomas
Carlyle summed up the uproar beautifully: “All Yankee-doodle-dom blazed up like
one universal soda bottle.”
America
had invited Charles Dickens over, shown him everything, and insisted that he
take a good look.
Then,
it got sore when he told the world what he saw.
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