Tonight, we’ll read an excerpt from “American Notes” a travelogue written by Charles Dickens detailing his trip from the year 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of North American society, almost as if returning a status report on their progress. Having arrived in Boston, he travelled as far south as Richmond, Virginia, as far west as St. Louis, Missouri and as far north as Quebec, Canada. The city he liked best on his trip? Boston.

The inspiration for this episode came from our recent “Helen Keller” episode. Her autobiography references a story within another section of tonight’s book as inspiring Helen’s mother to seek out specialized education for her daughter.

Dickens’s American journey was also an inspiration for his novel “Martin Chuzzlewit”. If you’ve been listening to our “Woodcraft” series of episodes lately, you may have heard mention of how the Woodcraft author named one of his famous hand-crafted canoes after a Chuzzlewit character.

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