The steamship Charles Dickens sailed to America in 1842 was Britannia. Dickens and his wife, Catherine, crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool to Boston aboard the Cunard paddle steamer during a stormy January voyage.
Britannia was part of Cunard’s first fleet of wooden steamships, which began a regular scheduled Atlantic service in 1840. The ships were built primarily to carry mail reliably under contracts with the British Admiralty, so space and comfort were secondary concerns. Britannia could carry about 115 passengers and reached roughly 9 knots.
Dickens disliked the cramped conditions and later described the interior as resembling a “gigantic hearse.” His American journey supplied material for American Notes for General Circulation, published in 1842, as well as observations that influenced later writing. Great Western was a real rival Atlantic steamship, but Dickens did not make this voyage aboard it; Mayflower and Titanic belong to different historical contexts.