Bücher der Reihe Cambridge Library Collection - North American History

As a young man, Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843-1911), the Cambridge-educated Radical politician, spent two years touring the English-speaking world. This two-volume illustrated account of his travels was published in 1868, the year in which he first became a member of Parliament. Volume 2 opens as he leaves America in late 1866 for Australia and South Asia in search of British influences. This second leg of his journey confirmed for Dilke that England not only existed elsewhere beyond Great Britain, but that it spoke to the whole world through its cultural and societal offshoots across the entire globe. His discoveries of traditional English customs and lifestyles in the farther reaches of Australia, India and even Russia are recounted with pleasure and surprise. The book sheds light on British colonial culture at the height of the empire, through the eyes of a youthful, left-wing observer.

As a young man, Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843-1911), the Cambridge-educated Radical politician who went on to campaign for votes for women and labourers, legalisation of trade unions, and universal schooling, spent two years touring the English-speaking world. This two-volume illustrated account of his journey was published in 1868, the year in which he first entered Parliament. Volume 1 describes his travels across the United States, where he arrived aboard The Saratoga, landing at Chesapeake Bay in Virginia on 20 June 1866. Dilke explored the reconstructing American South, the bustling eastern seaboard, the vast plains of the Midwest, the magnificent Rocky Mountain range, and the diverse landscape and peoples of California before venturing south into Mexico and departing for Polynesia and the Pacific islands. He thoughtfully discusses the legacy of British colonial culture in America, and its continuing diffusion via America to other parts of the world.

The British painter Eyre Crowe chronicled, through words and pictures, his six-month American tour with William Makepeace Thackeray. Crowe accompanied Thackeray in the unfamiliar role of his secretary during the latter's lecture tour round the United States in 1852-3, and his illustrated account was published in 1893 - thirty years after the writer's death - under the title, With Thackeray In America. Crowe relates that the renowned humourist asked him to accompany him for the simple reason that 'Six months tumbling about the world will do you no harm.' A lasting and memorable partnership was formed, and the details of the adventure were preserved in Crowe's amusing running commentary as well as in his art.

The British barrister Henry Latham's thoughtful letters, describing three months he spent in the United States, were published in 1867. His intention in recording the details of his travels was to encourage other Englishmen and women to visit their American cousins and make their own judgements as to their true manner and spirit. He expressed the hope that greater social contact would foster better understanding between the two nations. Latham remarked that Americans of that period were far more hospitable and hearty than the English, and observed that there existed in the land of freedom a highly motivating suspicion that contentment was a spurious kind of virtue invented by the English aristocracy. To his accounts of cities from Niagara and New York to Atlanta and New Orleans, Latham added supplementary chapters reflecting on the chances of survival for Black and indigenous Americans.

A few years after her marriage to a wealthy American, the English stage-actress Frances Anne Kemble (1809-1893) moved with her husband to his residence in Georgia, where he had inherited two plantations. There she kept a journal of her shocking observations of the practice of slavery. Written over a period of less than four months, Kemble's journal records her day-to-day encounters with her husband's slaves, and attempts to expose the moral injustice of slavery. The journal circulated privately among her friends, but was not published until 1863, long after Kemble's divorce in 1849. Her book is credited with influencing Britain's position of neutrality during the American Civil War despite the cotton industry's lobbying in favour of the South. Kemble's journal remains a lasting and important critique of slavery, and a valuable document about the nineteenth-century American south.

Written by Henry James, Portraits of Places is a record of the author's reminiscences of his travels in Italy, France, and England during 1876-1882. Beginning in Venice, James takes the reader on a journey through Italy to France (Paris, Rheims, Normandy and the Pyrenees) and England (London, Warwickshire). His finely crafted word-portraits vividly evoke the less-frequented monuments of Europe, the abbeys and castles, events and festivals, and the scenic beauty of London at different times of the year. Also included are sketches of four scenic locales in North America: Saratoga, Newport, Quebec, and Niagara. Portraits of Places is a vintage work by a famous literary figure that memorably captures scenes of cultural and historical beauty on both sides of the Atlantic, as observed by an American traveller over a period of six years.

In 1856, Isabella Bird published The Englishwoman in America, the first of what would be many books of her travels around the world. Adopting a tone of aloof bemusement, she describes in detail the hardships and annoyances of her travels by sea from England to Halifax, and on the road to Boston, Cincinnati, and Chicago. The book's 20 chapters are full of keenly observed and entertainingly told stories of pickpockets and luggage thieves, greasy hotels, and Americans who are very polite, but have the unfortunate habit of spitting on the floor. Bird admits to sharing the regrettably prejudiced view the English have of America, but nevertheless finds much to like and admire in this new country bustling with ethnically diverse immigrants full of energy and bravado. The Englishwoman in America is a wonderful travelogue that offers a lively and personal glimpse into mid-nineteenth-century America.

After the success of The Englishwoman in America (also reissued in this series), the indefatigable Isabella Bird (1831-1904) continued her travels - first to Scotland, then to Australia and Hawaii - before returning to the United States and taking up residence in what was then the newest state, Colorado. Her adventures here - recorded as letters to her sister which she artlessly tells the reader were never intended for publication - included riding alone across the prairie, trying to help a family dying of cholera in the face of indifference from the local inhabitants, a sight of the invalids who were coming to Denver in huge numbers to be cured by the mountain air, and an encounter (if it was nothing more) with that western archetype, the one-eyed, romantic, courteous, poetry-declaiming outlaw, who by the following year was 'in a dishonoured grave, with a rifle bullet in his brain'.

The celebrated Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson arranged for his friend the art historian Sidney Colvin to select and organise the essays in this volume, many of which had originally appeared in 1888, though some date back to the early 1880s. It was published in 1892, two years before Stevenson's untimely death. Colvin obtained many of the pieces from their original publishers, including magazines such as Fraser's, Longman's, The Magazine of Art and Scribner's. What is particularly noteworthy about this collection is that although Stevenson had settled in the South Seas well before it appeared, all the items included were written prior to his journey there. Colvin mentions that the concluding pieces in particular were written during a period of considerable gloom and sickness for Stevenson, who himself claimed to 'recover peace of body and mind' after moving to the Pacific in 1890.

Joseph Sturge (1793-1859) was an English Quaker who was influential in campaigning for the abolition of slavery in the British empire and founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839. Having visited the West Indies in 1834, he travelled to the United States in 1841 to examine the slavery question there firsthand, and to lend his support to the American abolition movement by sharing his experiences of how success was achieved elsewhere. His account of his visit, and of the feelings and opinions of the American campaigners he met, is the subject of this 1842 book, which he hoped would encourage activists around the world and promote understanding among them.

In this book, first published in 1847, the English author Sarah Mytton Maury gives a personal and very positive account of her impressions of the United States upon arriving there in late 1845. Through marriage she gains access to many American statesmen of her day, and the book is dedicated to James Buchanan, later President of the United States. Maury portrays prominent senators, judges, officers, members of the clergy and Presidents John Adams and James K. Polk. Many of the descriptions are interspersed with extracts from speeches and letters by those portrayed. The book gives a great deal of attention to the early nineteenth-century dispute between Britain and the United States about territorial claims in the north-west, the so-called 'Oregon Question'. On this question as in other matters of contention or cultural differences between the two countries, Maury maintains a position of neutrality.

Through his affiliation with the New York Herald, the young English-born writer Kinahan Cornwallis (1839-1917), was afforded the opportunity to witness the nineteen-year-old Prince of Wales's 1860 highly successful tour of Canada and America more closely than any other individual outside the royal party. He chronicled his observations and depicted the progress of the first visit of a member of the British royal family to the Americas, and the resulting book was quickly published in New York. Cornwallis wrote that his great aim in recounting the travels of His Royal Highness was to provide the most accurate account of the tour, a task for which he considered himself uniquely qualified. He expected his volume to be received with equal enthusiasm, and the events to be accorded equal historical significance, in both England and America, perhaps even strengthening the deeply rooted bonds between the people of both nations.

James Dawson Burn's 1865 book endeavours to give a true account of the industrial, social, moral and political state of the working class in America, and is addressed partly to intending emigrants. His study examines the people themselves, as well as the circumstances that influenced their conduct during the Civil War, and draws comparisons between their condition and that of the working class in Europe. Burns, writing from the perspective of an English visitor to the United States, remarks that upon seeing the visible social comfort there, he came to believe that lower-class Americans of the period were far in advance of their peers in his own country. Given that American rights and liberties provided such a strong inducement for the labouring population of Europe to flock to its shores, Burns intended his research to serve as a guide for what they could and could not expect.

Captain Flack, known for his columns in The Field, published this record of the his experiences of hunting, shooting and fishing in the Southern states of America in 1866. Starting with an introduction about the wilderness of the American forests and life in the western prairies, the book goes on to record the natural history of mammals and game-birds in the South. It provides graphic descriptions of the author's encounters with wildlife including antelopes, bison, bears, wild turkeys, fish, alligators and snakes, as well as bee hunting. Flack describes the South as the paradise of the true sportsman. In an appendix, the author provides a guide to the locations where each kind of game may be found, together with information about routes and costs. This detailed and entertaining account provides fascinating insights into Victorian social history and valuable data on the ecology of the Southern states at that time.

Fur trader Alexander Henry (1765-1814) and geographer David Thompson (1770-1857) were employees of the Northwest Company. Their unpublished journals were edited by the ornithologist Elliott Coues (1842-99) and appeared in 1897 in three volumes; in this two-volume reissue the index volume is included in Volume 2.

Published in 1860, this is a two-volume account of expeditions to investigate underexplored areas of Canada and their agricultural and mineral potential. Illustrated with plates based on photographs, this work by geologist Henry Youle Hind (1823-1908) remains a classic of nineteenth-century exploration literature, intended for a broad readership.

Sir James Edward Alexander (1803-85), an officer in the British Army, travelled the world extensively and published over a dozen fascinating accounts of his journeys. In this two-volume work, published in 1833, he offers his insights into the landscapes, peoples and practices of the Americas.

Conway's two-volume biography of revolutionary author Thomas Paine (1737-1809) did much to inspire a reassessment of Paine's importance in the 'age of revolutions'. Paine's political pamphlets influenced the American Declaration of Independence, and he was later a member of the French Convention, voting against the execution of Louis XVI.

Conway's 1904 Autobiography is a fascinating account of the life and work of an American proponent of anti-slavery, free religion, social reform and women's suffrage. Depicting the age and its foremost thinkers, it features the author's friendships with such figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Carlyle.

Published in 1862, this two-volume work is Anthony Trollope's first-hand account of North American culture during the American Civil War. Volume 1 focuses on Canada and the northern United States, in particular Boston, New England and New York. It also discusses women's rights and American education and religion.

First published in 1863, this two-volume work by the British journalist William Howard Russell (1820-1907) describes his experiences in America at the start of the Civil War. It records his impressions of the rival northern and southern states, their leaders and citizens, during a landmark period in America's history.

Naval officer Thomas Southey (1777-1838) was the younger brother of Robert Southey, Romantic poet and historian, to whom this three-volume work is dedicated. Published in 1827, it covers the period from Columbus to 1816, drawing on extensive reading as well as Southey's own experiences while stationed in the Caribbean.

Volume 1 of this 1846 work contains an account of the voyage to Newfoundland of Sir Richard Levinge (1811-84), army officer and sportsman, and his experiences on the eastern seaboard of Canada and the United States, conveying the dangers and attractions of the area for the traveller and hunter.

In 1839 the British writer James Silk Buckingham travelled through the southern USA to investigate the practice of slavery. This two-volume work, published in 1842, describes his findings within the framework of a travel narrative. It covers a wide variety of industries as well as economic, social and political debates.

First published in 1811, and here reissued in its 'corrected and improved' second edition (1814), John Lambert's Travels is packed with fascinating descriptions and lively anecdotes. Volume 1 describes Newfoundland and Quebec, the French, British and Native American communities, trade, religion, and exotic foods including maple sugar and 'stinking cheese'.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) is best known as an outstanding statesman and leader. First published in 1874, this three-volume work was compiled entirely from Franklin's own writings. Volume 1 contains Franklin's autobiography (to 1857), and also recounts his experiments with lightning conductors and his examination before the House of Commons.

Scottish-born journalist Alexander Mackay (1808-52) spent much of his career in North America. In 1846-7 he visited the United States again. This three-volume work, published in 1849, recounts his experiences and describes America's vibrant society and prosperous economy. Volume 1 focuses on New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

Laudatory and disparaging, detailed and generalizing, describing political centers and societal margins, Grattan's 1859 work vividly illustrates nineteenth-century America. Sharing eyewitness accounts and moral reflections, Volume 1 describes his first impressions of the antebellum United States, life in New England, and issues ranging from political parties to domestic servants.

The American Romantic artist George Catlin (1796-1872) travelled widely during the 1830s, documenting the vanishing cultures of the Native Americans. In 1841 he published this two-volume account of his experiences, including over 300 drawings of people, artifacts, and animals. Volume 1 focuses on the Crow, Blackfeet and Mandan peoples.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third United States President (1801-9) and principal author of the Declaration of Independence. First published in 1853, Volume 1 of a nine-volume edition of his writings includes his autobiography and letters written up to and during his 1784-9 mission to Europe.