Text: Joseph Jackson, from “Dickens in America Fifty Years Ago,” World's Work: A History of Our Time (New York, NY), vol. XXIII, January 1912, pp. 283-294

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To those who may have thought it remarkable that neither in Forster's “ Life of Dickens,” nor in any of the three volumes of his letters which the novelist's daughter and his sister-in-law published after his death, is there any mention of Edgar Allan Poe, the certainty that Poe wrote a most scathing answer to “American Notes” may give the needed explanation. When Dickens was in Philadelphia in March, 1842, among those who wrote to him asking for an appointment was Poe. That an interview actually took place cannot be doubted. Dickens alludes to it in a letter to Poe written from London eight months later.

This letter was dated November 27, 1842, and by the time it was received, almost at the time it was written, a Boston publisher had brought out the most incisive attack on Dickens that had emanated from this country. This work was entitled “English Notes, Intended for very Extensive Circulation! by Quarles Quickens, Esq.” It is a sixteen page pamphlet in the form of a small quarto newspaper of the time, and bears the imprint of the Boston Daily Mail. And there can be very little doubt that the author of it was Poe.

The probability is that, during the interval between the time of Dickens's visit and the receipt of this letter, Poe, then an editor at a small salary on Graham s Magazine, had finally convinced himself that he had been entirely forgotten and neglected by his English contemporary, and he had not hesitated to take revenge.

Apart from his tales, “English Notes” is probably the cleverest bit of prose writing Poe ever did. While in the main it is a travesty, it also is a rather impish retort. There is a parody of Dickens's manner that is as excellent burlesque as anything of Thackeray's, and the satire which occupies a large part of the work, is as sharp as a hypodermic needle. So far as I have been able to see, no review of Poe's “English Notes” ever appeared.

The only other answer to “American Notes” was a dull, stupid piece written [page 293:] in England entitled, “ Change for American Notes”; yet by the inscrutable laws of chance, this uninteresting production is fairly well known and Poe's retort passed unnoticed.

I think I should explain that in assigning the authorship of “English Notes” to Poe, I have done so on my own authority. Of course the pamphlet did not bear his name, but he appropriated part of its pseudonymic — “Quarles “ — for his signature, when he first published “The Raven” in the American Whig two years later. For this reason and as a result of other careful investigations I was satisfied that Poe was the author, but 1 was unwilling to make the decision ar- bitrarily; and so 1 have had the facts reviewed by others whom I believed to be competent. These, 1 need not state here, have been unanimous in supporting my conclusion. That the book has been unnoticed by any of Poe's numerous biographers is not remarkable when it is considered that the work was of the most ephemeral character and the copy in my possession is the only one I have ever seen.

Dickens replied to his critics in America by giving other unpalatable pictures of life in the United States in his novel “ Martin Chuzzlewit,” which followed close upon the heels of “American Notes,” but this did not interfere with the writer's popularity on this side of the Atlantic. The people here as a rule, were not more offended by his criticisms than they were by those of some other visitors. They did not continue to read them, to tell the truth, but enjoyed the novels and the matchless Christmas stories as they came forth at almost regular intervals from that master's pen; and when a quarter century had passed, a new generation of readers had come to join their elders, and it was unprejudiced save in favor of the mighty humorist. So, when, in 1867, the newspapers reported that Dickens was coming to America to read his works, his host of friends — and they numbered every one of his readers — were impatient for his arrival.

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