In 1832, three years before Alexis de Tocqueville published Democracy in America, the English novelist Frances Trollope released Domestic Manners of the Americans, an eye-opening record of her travels in the young republic. Expecting a utopia of “justice and liberty for all, ” she is shocked to discover the contradictions at the heart of the American character. Funny and fearless, Trollope’s biting critique became an international sensation. Yet, as Mark Twain remarked, ‘She was merely telling the truth and this indignant nation knew it.”
Today, Domestic Manners of the Americans remains a prophetic diagnosis of America and a masterpiece of nineteenth-century travel writing. Now published as an e Book with an introduction by acclaimed travel author Sara Wheeler, this classic work offers modern American readers a fascinating reintroduction to themselves.
About the author
Sara Wheeler is the author of many books of biography and travel, including Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990–2011 and Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile. Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica was an international bestseller that The New York Times described as “gripping, emotional” and “compelling, ” and The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle was chosen as Book of the Year by Michael Palin and Will Self, among others. Her most recent book is O My America!: Six Women and Their Second Acts in a New World. Wheeler lives in London.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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