In what year did Dickens first visit America?

Charles Dickens first visited the United States in 1842. He arrived in Boston on 22 January with his wife, Catherine Dickens, aboard the RMS Britannia, beginning a wider tour of the United States and Canada.

The visit was partly prompted by Dickens’s enormous popularity in North America, but it also exposed tensions over international copyright. American publishers frequently reprinted British books without compensating their authors, and Dickens publicly criticized this practice during his journey. He also delivered lectures and met prominent American writers, including Washington Irving.

Dickens recorded his impressions in American Notes for General Circulation, published later in 1842. The book praised some aspects of American life but sharply criticized slavery, prisons, and other social conditions. His first tour lasted several months and included cities such as New York, Washington, Richmond, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Montreal.

A common mix-up is with Dickens’s second American visit, which began in 1867, when he toured the country giving celebrated public readings.