Have just finished American Notes...

...and couldn't put it down. Being a big fan of Dickens as a novelist already this foray into travel-writing definitely didn't disappoint, with his typically fantastic writing style and insightful observations making it impossible to put down. His description of Niagara Falls was a particularly striking passage:

'Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing, the first effect, and the enduring one - instant and lasting - of the tremendous spectacle, was Peace. Peace of Mind, tranquillity, calm recollections of the Dead, great thoughts of Eternal Rest and Happiness: nothing of gloom or terror. Niagara was at once stamped upon my heart, an Image of Beauty; to remain there, changeless and indelible, until its pulses cease to beat, for ever.'

From his account of the voyage over to America and the travelling within America once there, it's striking what an enormously brave trip this was to undertake, particularly for someone as famous as he then was, in 1842.

Top stuff!