Note 7 to Chapter 6 of the author's Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter which Clarendon Press published in 1972. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author and of the Clarendon Press, which retains copyright.
In a letter to Forster, Dickens said, "I believe there is no country, on the face of the earth, where there is less freedom of opinion on any subject in reference, to which them is a broad difference of opinion than in this" (Life, i. 194). Less direct but perhaps more expressive of Dickens's extreme dislike of America is a later sarcastic reference in a letter to Miss Coons: "Macready [in America] still continues as successful as it is possible to be. He is very well, and likes the people -- which must be a great comfort to him" (The Heart of Charles Dickens, p. 59)
Last modified: 3 May 2001