A. A. Dixon's frontispiece for "American Notes"

Returning Emigrants

A. A. Dixon

1906

lithograph

4 ¾ inches high by 3 ⅛ inches wide (12.2 cm by 8 cm)

Initial regular illustration for the Collins Pocket edition

The wife of a British soldier, presumably stationed in Canada, must now return home with her two young children, but unaccompanied by her husband. Dixon has invented this forlorn steerage passenger to represent all "returning emigrants." See Ch. 16, "The Passage Home," p. 338.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]

Passage Realised: Despondent and Alone with her Children and Baggage on Deck

These were additions to the list of entertaining incidents, but there was still another source of interest. We carried in the steerage nearly a hundred passengers: a little world of poverty: and as we came to know individuals among them by sight, from looking down upon the deck where they took the air in the daytime, and cooked their food, and very often ate it too, we became curious to know their histories, and with what expectations they had gone out to America, and on what errands they were going home, and what their circumstances were. The information we got on these heads from the carpenter, who had charge of these people, was often of the strangest kind. Some of them had been in America but three days, some but three months, and some had gone out in the last voyage of that very ship in which they were now returning home. Others had sold their clothes to raise the passage-money, and had hardly rags to cover them; others had no food, and lived upon the charity of the rest: and one man, it was discovered nearly at the end of the voyage, not before — for he kept his secret close, and did not court compassion — had had no sustenance whatever but the bones and scraps of fat he took from the plates used in the after-cabin dinner, when they were put out to be washed. [Ch. XVI, "The Passage Home," page 338]

Commentary

The figures epitomize the condition of the emigrants returning to Great Britain, but do not realise any of Dickens's descriptions. Dixon's Edwardian lithographs generally lack the detail and humour of the work of such Victorian illustrators as Hablot Knight Browne and George Cruikshank, but exemplify the same tendency towards realism seen in the work of such New Men of the Sixties as Fred Barnard. Rather, however, than capture the essence of the text's cityscapes, riverscapes, and characteristic American social scenes and characters, Dixon focuses on one or two figures, and merely sketches in the backdrop, as here with the ship's deck.

Although Dixon's focal figure is the poor woman on the deck in the foreground, in the background, looking down upon her are Charles and Catherine Dickens.

Related Materials

"Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison," Chapter 7 in American Notes (1842)
Introduction to "Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison"
Reading and Discussion Questions
Charles Dickens, the traveler — places he visited
Charles Dickens and American Slavery

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. American Notes and Pictures from Italy, Volume XX, in the New York: P. F. Collier & Son edition, n. d.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes. Illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London and Glasgow: Collins Clear-Type Press, 1906.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation and Pictures from Italy. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. XIII.

Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist with American Notes for General Circulation and Pictures from Italy. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge. Diamond Edition. 14 volumes. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. XI.

Dickens, Charles. Pictures from Italy, Sketches by Boz and American Notes. Illustrated by Thomas Nast and Arthur B. Frost. American Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1877 (copyrighted in 1876). Vol VII.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation and Pictures from Italy. Illustrated by J. Gordon Thomson and A. B. Frost. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1880. Vol. XIX.

Created 31 August 2026