Transcribed from the 1913 Chapman & Hall, Ltd. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org [Picture: Emigrants] AMERICAN NOTES FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION AND PICTURES FROM ITALY {1} BY CHARLES DICKENS * * * * * WITH 8 ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARCUS STONE, R.A. * * * * * LONDON CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD. 1913 * * * * * I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THOSE FRIENDS OF MINE IN AMERICA WHO, GIVING ME A WELCOME I MUST EVER GRATEFULLY AND PROUDLY REMEMBER, LEFT MY JUDGEMENT FREE; AND WHO, LOVING THEIR COUNTRY, CAN BEAR THE TRUTH, WHEN IT IS TOLD GOOD HUMOUREDLY, AND IN A KIND SPIRIT. * * * * * PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF “AMERICAN NOTES” IT is nearly eight years since this book was first published. I present it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my opinions as it expresses, are quite unaltered too. My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any existence not in my imagination. They can examine for themselves whether there has been anything in the public career of that country during these past eight years, or whether there is anything in its present position, at home or abroad, which suggests that those influences and tendencies really do exist. As they find the fact, they will judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong-going in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such thing, they will consider me altogether mistaken. Prejudiced, I never have been otherwise than in favour of the United States. No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores, with a stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in America. I purposely abstain from extending these observations to any length. I have nothing to defend, or to explain away. The truth is the truth; and neither childish absurdities, nor unscrupulous contradictions, can make it otherwise. The earth would still move round the sun, though the whole Catholic Church said No.