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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 eBook with an introduction by acclaimed travel author Sara Wheeler, this classic work offers modern American readers a fascinating reintroduction to themselves.
"I am convinced that there is no writer who has so well and so accurately (I need not add entertainingly) described America"
—Charles Dickens
"One of the great pioneer exercises in transatlantic disparagement; its influence lasted deep into the later 19th century"
—Independent
"[Trollope] was merely telling the truth and this indignant nation knew it. She was painting a state of things which did not disappear at once. It lasted to well along in my youth, and I remember it."
—Mark Twain
"Ever since its publication, Americans have loved to hate Domestic Manners of the Americans. It is still quoted by American journalists, precisely because the book remains as perceptive—and funny—as ever"
—Sunday Times
"This remarkable woman became one of the most prolific and popular female writers of the century... She was consistently original"
—Sunday Times