Sal a then goes on to wonder
'whether we, on our side of the Atlantic, could show any
English Grunpecks, any genuine Britishers, who, having
visited the United States, had been unable or unwilling
to discern one single thing worthy of admiration in their
travelling experiences'.
He surveys the multitude of travel-books about America written by British
tourists but though he finds in them 'the people, the manners, and the insti
tutions of the American republic commented on with sufficient severity' he
cannot discover 'the real prejudiced traveller - the genuine Britisher -
who couldn't or wouldn't find any good in the Americans' until he lights
on Richard Parkinson's vitriolic A Tour in America published in 1805, which
he proceeds to make sport with for the rest of the article. To American
readers this article must surely have seemed almost a calculated insult,
especially if they believed it to be by Dickens, as they had some excuse
for doing. First the world ot Chuzzlewittian America is strongly evoked
in Colonel Grunpeck and then, blandly ignoring the controversial productions
of Basil Hall, Mrs. Trollope and Dickens himself, the writer declares that
he has to go back to some forgotten work, published half a century earlier,
before he can find an example of a really prejudiced British account of
America. Dickens cannot have been unaware of the teasing effect this article
was bound to have on American readers, and we must, I think, regard its
publication in Household Words as deliberately provocative on his part.
The United States received far more attention in All The Year Round
than in Household Words. Upwards of sixty articles on American subjects
appeared in the former journal between its inauguration in 1859 and
Dickens's death eleven years later. Lacking the sort of evidence about
contributors that survives for the earlier periodical, we cannot be quite
so sure about the closeness of Dickens's editorial supervision of All The Year
Round but his letters would certainly seem to indicate that he continued to
exercise, both directly and through his sub-editor, Wills, a tight control over
its contents. Certainly, as far as the American Civil War is concerned, it
has been convincingly shown, as we shall see, that the marked change in
editorial policy towards the end of 1861 was due to Dickens himself.
We find in All The Year Round articles on all aspects of American life
and manners - public transport, Indians, marriage customs, volunteer firemen,
elections, cemeteries, newspaper sensations, naval and military traditions,
theatres, social discourse and humour. Tiie tone pervading them is a mixture
of shocked disapproval, amused patronage and some admiration. There is a
constant fascination with the 'go-ahead' vigour of America but also much
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