Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with someth… More >>
Domestic Manners Of The Americans Part Two
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#1 by Anonymous on May 16, 2010 - 8:39 pm
Examination of Frances Miltons Trollope’s book “Domestic Manners of the Americans” appears to be her personal catharsis that England had lost to this “unmannered” America twice (the Revolution and 1812). Additionally, she was forced at the age of 50 to become a writer since her own husband was an intellectual failure. Her abusive tone about America was greatly contrasted by Alex De Toqueville and perhaps potential readers should balance Mrs. Trollope’s caustic remarks with those of Toqueville’s. John Finley, an Indiana poet, rejects Mrs. Trollope’s remarks and took a swipe at her in his poem “The Hoosier’s Nest”. Thus the first true CULTURE war from international authors was underway. The theme of culture was very much in vogue during the 1820s to the 1840s.
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by Craig Richard Nelson on May 16, 2010 - 11:14 pm
She wrote: “The land is defended from the river by a levee, without which the dwellings would speedily disappear. I could not help fancying nature would some day take the matter into her own hands, and if so, farewell New Orleans.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by C. M Mills on May 16, 2010 - 11:51 pm
Fanny Trollope (1779-1863) wrote over 35 novels and several non-fictions books in her effort to rescue her family from poverty. However, the most read of all her books is “Domestic Manners of the Americans” which she published in 1832. It was in that distant year that Fanny and two of her children traveled across the Atlantic Ocean. Her purpose was to join a utopian community in Tennessee whose denizens were freed slaves.
Fanny left her impecunious and feckless husband the barrister Thomas Trollope back home in England. Her famous son Anthony did not make the trip as he was a student at Harrow School. Fanny knew her husband would join her in the USA when money became available. Later the family would flee to Bruges to escape creditors. Fanny eventually lived out her life in Florence near her son Thomas Trollope.
After leaving Tennessee the Trollopes settled for two years in the Queen City of the West Cincinnati, Ohio. Fanny did not like America or the American people! She found us xenephobic; boastful, prideful and violent.She hated the hypocrisy of life in Midwest Ohio although she did attend such cultural attractions as opera, plays and lectures. She favored the state Anglican Church of Great Britain not caring for America’s separation between church and state.
This book could well be read alongside Charles Dickens’ “American Notes for General Circulation” based on his 1842 six month trip to the USA.
Both Trollope and Dickens found the Americans crude, lacking in manners
and eager to make a quick buck. Listen to Trollope at her most scathing:
“..among the rich and the poor, in the slave states, and in the free states…I do not like them. I do not like their principals, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions.” (p.314).
Fanny Trollope’s book is more interesting than Dickens since she discusses colorful characters and shares anecdotes about her sojourn in our young republic. Like Dickens she hates the odious practice of tobacco chewing and the mangling of the English language. Trollope found us Yankees to be too serious and viewing us as poorly read. Unlike the wealthy and famous Dickens, Mrs. Trollope was a middle-aged woman fighting off poverty with her pen. I enjoyed her descriptions of nature such as those she paints of the Potomac River, Northern Virginia and the Niagra Falls area in New York and Canada. She is aware of flora and fauna and describes them with knowledge and in beautiful prose.
Dickens and Trollope give us the eye to see America in the days prior to the Civil War when the curse of chattel slavery ruled the land. Since those days America has granted freedom to all citizens. I wish both Fanny and Charles could visit us again in the 21st century. Their remarks would be of great interest to this reviewer and countless others!
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by Fitzgerald Fan on May 17, 2010 - 2:39 am
All I can say is: what a great read! Who knew? Quite frankly, upon first sight of this book I must admit a bit of dread as the puritanical artwork does not smack of fun and games. Of course, as a literature student, I should know better than to ever judge a book by its cover.
Had I been Fanny Trollope writing such an account of America in the 1820s, I would be hardpressed to say that I would have changed a single word. Trollope has been the victim of many mean spirited caricatures and accusations by Americans and it still continues today, but what is interesting is that no one can do more than attack her person. In other words, no one seems to be able to refute her claims.
Trollope’s “bitchiness” seems, for the most part, merited by my standards and while she finds much to complain about concerning an American democracy in its adolescence, she certainly discovers just as many things that she likes or finds beautiful.
Plain and simple, Americans collectively have a hard time taking criticism, especially from an outsider…and at that time, political criticism from a woman was deemed absurd if not audacious.
Last but not least, Fanny Trollope is always sure to preface anything she says with the conscious realization that she can only speak for what she has seen/heard personally and is thereby not judging ALL of America.
Trollope is witty and anecdotal and I think anyone interested in what an outspoken Englishwoman had to say about the New World should certainly pick up a copy. I found particular interest in gender/religious issues but got the most laughs out of her descriptions of American manners (or the lack thereof).
It is always interesting to see how much things have changed, and better yet, how many things have remained exactly the same!
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Anonymous on May 17, 2010 - 3:57 am
The book was written in the 1830’s by an astute Victorian observer. It was hugely successful in England and received with horror in America, and unavailable in the U.S. for over a hundred years. This book made Fanny Trollope’s career and she supported her family as a writer for the rest of her working life. The failings of American society and America’s system of government are illuminated scathingly, and the amazing thing is that the observations made 150 years ago are still valid now. Topics discusse
Rating: 5 / 5