Domestic Manners of the Americans

When Fanny Trollope set sail for America in 1827 with hopes of joining a Utopian community of emancipated slaves she took with her three of her children and a young French artist leaving behind her son Anthony growing debts and a husband going slowly mad from mercury poisoning. But what followed was a tragicomedy of illness scandal and failed business ventures. Nevertheless on her return to England Fanny turned her misfortunes into a remarkable book. A masterpiece of nineteenth-century travel-writing Domestic Manners of the Americans is a vivid and hugely witty satirical account of a nation and was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic.