As a popular author, Dickens sought to acquaint his readers with extraordinary and alien topics, be they of human interaction or foreign climes. His travels took him to Italy, France, Switzerland and America.

This volume presents a variety of key excerpts and essays written by Dickens on the virtues and follies of travelling. Recalling an age when travel meant greater investment, both of time and emotion, and spanning widely varied modes of transport, Dickens' writings place emphasis on the experience of the journey, the people encountered and the sights absorbed.

As a writer who strongly believed in tangible locations, and whose writings are so marked by descriptions reliant upon thorough knowledge of the surroundings, Dickens' thoughts on travel provide an insight into the landscape of his novels.