A. A. Dixon's “The bedchamber was a large, ghostly room.” Seventh lithograph for “American Notes” (1906)

“The bedchamber was a large, ghostly room.”

Arthur A. Dixon

1906

Lithographic reproduction of a watercolour

12.3 cm high x 8.1 cm wide (4 ⅞ by 3 ¼ inches)

Seventh illustration for American Notes, Collins' Pocket Edition (1906), facing page 289.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated from Chapter XIV: No Bedchamber out of Poe, After All.

“At length, between ten and eleven o’clock at night, a few feeble lights appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian village, where we were to stay till morning, lay before us.

They were gone to bed at the log Inn, which was the only house of entertainment in the place, but soon answered to our knocking, and got some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room, tapestried with old newspapers, pasted against the wall. The bed-chamber to which my wife and I were shown, was a large, low, ghostly room; with a quantity of withered branches on the hearth, and two doors without any fastening, opposite to each other, both opening on the black night and wild country, and so contrived, that one of them always blew the other open: a novelty in domestic architecture, which I do not remember to have seen before, and which I was somewhat disconcerted to have forced on my attention after getting into bed, as I had a considerable sum in gold for our travelling expenses, in my dressing-case. Some of the luggage, however, piled against the panels, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep would not have been very much affected that night, I believe, though it had failed to do so. [Chapter XIV: “Return to Cincinnati. A Stage-coach Ride from that City to Columbus, and thence to Sandusky. So, by Lake Erie, to the Falls of Niagara,“ pp. 295-296]

Related Materials

"Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison," Chapter 7 in American Notes (1842)
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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

Last updated 6 September 2026