Other Non-Fiction Trollope, Fanny: Domestic Manners of the Americans V1. 27 Feb 2010

[weatherwax]

When Fanny Trollope set sail for America in 1827 with hopes of joining a Utopian community of emancipated slaves, she took with her three of her children and a young French artist, leaving behind her son Anthony, growing debts, and a husband going slowly mad from mercury poisoning. But what followed was a tragicomedy of illness, scandal, and failed business ventures. Nevertheless, on her return to England, Fanny turned her misfortunes into a remarkable book. A masterpiece of nineteenth-century travel-writing, "Domestic Manners of the Americans" is a vivid and hugely witty satirical account of a nation.

The book created a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, as Frances Trollope had a caustic view of the Americans and found America strongly lacking in manners and learning. She was appalled by America's egalitarian middle-class and by the influence of evangelicalism that was emerging during the Second Great Awakening. Trollope was also disgusted by slavery, of which she saw relatively little as she stayed in the South only briefly, and by the popularity of tobacco chewing.

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[Xanthe]

Thanks for postiing all these books of outsiders looking at America.