A critical examination of the works of three English novelists who visited the United States during the nineteenth century: Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens, and Anthony Trollope. These three produced letters, travel books, and novels, which taken together represent unique commentaries on life during the last century. Utilizing unpublished letters, diaries, and journals of Frances Trollope and Charles Dickens, and collections of letters of Dickens and Anthony Trollope, the study compares their immediate reaction to the scenes and facts of American society with the published travel books, and then with the fictional forms all three subsequently employed in utilizing American scenes or characters.