Common Language, Separate Voices
 When
the seventeenth-century settlers brought the English language to America,
they immediately and necessarily began to adapt it to their new environment.
These changes were noted early and criticized by purists on both sides
of the Atlantic. However, after the Revolution, Americans began to
take pride in their own form of English. Noah Webster (1758-1843) was
the major early proponent of American meanings and spellings over British
ones and published the earliest American dictionary, An American
Dictionary of the English Language (1806). During the years
since Webster, language differences have continued to develop, demonstrating
the truth of George Bernard Shaw's oft-repeated observation that the
two nations are "divided by a common language."
Like the American language, the earliest
American literature copied English models. However, after the Revolution
and the War of 1812, writers were eager to create a distinctly American
literature. British critics belittled their earliest efforts, and in
1820, in the Edinburgh Review, Sydney Smith posed the
famous question "Who reads an American book?'
Responding to this and similar taunts
with creative anger, American writers soon produced works that plenty
of British people read. Works by Washington Irving, James Fenimore
Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, and
Mark Twain had been acclaimed in Britain by the end of the nineteenth
century. Many American authors have lived and traveled in Britain,
and some, including Henry James, T.S. Eliot, and Sylvia Plath settled
there permanently.
Even as American writers gained respect
in Britain, British writers continued to have great influence in America.
Charles Dickens was lionized on his two trips to America, in 1842 and
1867-68. Other major British writers who traveled and lived in the
United States include Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, D.H.
Lawrence, and Aldous Huxley. British classics continue to be widely
read, and until the 1970s dominated the literary curriculum. Recently
the works of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen became popular films.
At the turn of the twenty-first century,
a steady stream of books and authors continues to cross the Atlantic
in both directions -- made possible by the proud heritage of the shared
language.
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 Noah
Webster.
Dissertations on the
English Language.
Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Company, 1789, title page.
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(167)
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Early Advocate of Separate American English
American lexicographer and educator
Noah Webster (1758-1843) published the first dictionary
of American English in 1806. His earlier lectures on
language and education, published as Dissertations
on the English Language, were full of linguistic
patriotism and espoused divergence from British English
in terms of spelling and word usage.
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First Published Collection of Americanisms, 1816
John Pickering (1777-1846) was a lawyer,
philologist, and linguist, born in Massachusetts, and
educated at Harvard. His lasting fame is based on his A
Vocabulary, or Collection of Words and Phrases Which
Have Been Supposed to Be Peculiar to the United States
of America, the first published collection of
Americanisms.
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 John
Pickering.
A Vocabulary, or Collection
of Words and Phrases Which Have Been Supposed to Be Peculiar
to the United States of America.
Boston: Cummings and Hilliard, 1816, title page.
General Collections (168)
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 Shirley
Hughes. Moving Molly.
New York:
Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1988,
pp. 2-3.
General Collections (169)
Shirley Hughes.
Moving Molly.
London: The Bodley Head, 1978,
pp. 2-3.
General Collections (170)
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Children's Books Illustrating Language Differences
Children's books published in both
Britain and the United States are sometimes altered to
reflect language differences between the two countries.
The story line and illustrations are the same in both,
but some of the words of the British original have been
altered for an American audience. For example, the British
term "pram" has been changed to "carriage," and "pavement" to"sidewalk."
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Explaining Military Slang
During World War II, both the British
and American military issued dictionaries to help bridge
the language difference. It's a Piece of Cake! suggests
that the term used as the title originated in British
slang during the war. Presented as unfamiliar, the phrase
is defined in the booklet as "it's easy" and equivalent
to the World War I term "It's got jam on it."
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This image is not available online.
United States War Department.
A Short Guide to Great Britain.
Washington, D.C.: 1942.
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress (171)
 C.
H. Ward-Jackson.
"It's a Piece of Cake!
RAF Slang Made Easy."
London: Nicholson and Watson, [1943?], cover.
Manuscript Division, Library
of Congress (172)
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This Library does not have permission
to display this image online.
"A Look at . . . English
v. English."
The Washington Post,
May 10, 1998, p. C3.
Serials and Government
Publications Division, Library of Congress (173)
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Language-Related Misadventures
In two related articles from The
Washington Post, an American living in Britain
and a Briton living in America chronicle amusing misadventures
caused by language differences between the two countries.
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A Literary Map of Britain
A literary map records the location
of places associated with authors and their literary
works or serves as a guide to their imaginative worlds.
A large number of the Library of Congress's collection
of literary maps relate to British literature. Most of
the Library's British literary maps are American-produced,
showing the high status that has traditionally been given
to British literature in the American educational system.
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 Ethel
Earle Wylie, compiler, and Ella Wall Van Leer, illustrator.
"A Pictorial Chart of English
Literature."
[Chicago?]: Rand McNally, 1929.
Geography and
Map Division, Library of Congress (174)
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 William
Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's Plays.
First American edition.
Philadelphia: Bioren and Madan, 1795.
Frontispiece - Title
Page
Batchelder Collection,
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(175)
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First American Edition of
Shakespeare's Plays
The first printed reference to a performance
of a Shakespeare play in what became the United States
is an advertisement for an amateur production of Romeo
and Juliet in New York in 1730; an English troupe
came to America in 1752 and gave the earliest recorded
professional performances.
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Tobacco Label with Romeo and Juliet
The appearance of Shakespeare's characters
on chewing tobacco labels demonstrates the popularity
of the play among all social levels in the nineteenth
century, when the tragedy entertained audiences in the
rough mining camps of the West as well as the elegant
theaters of the East.
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 "Juliet:
Fine Cut Chewing Tobacco."
St. Louis: James Moran and Co., 1873.
Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of Congress (176)
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Costume Design for a Federal Theatre Project Shakespeare
Production
This costume is for the foolish knight
Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a character from Twelfth
Night, by William Shakespeare. One of the New
Deal programs of the Depression era, the Federal Theatre
Project attempted to sustain the American theater by
employing actors, producers, designers, and other personnel.
It nurtured new talent and made stage performances available
at low cost to millions of Americans who had never seen
live theater.
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 Robert
Byrne.
Costume design for WPA Federal
Theatre Project production of Twelfth Night,
September 19, 1935.
Music Division,
Library of Congress (179)
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 Sir
Walter Scott, after Sir Henry Raeburn.
Detroit: Detroit Publishing Co.,
ca. [1900-1920].
Copyprint.
Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of Congress (180A)
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Sir Walter Scott
The works of Scottish novelist and
poet Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) were immensely popular
in America during the early and middle nineteenth century.
Mark Twain asserted that Scott's works had promoted a
deluded romanticism in the American South that may have
been "in great measure responsible for the Civil War."
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Dramatic Adaptation of Scott's Work
Charlotte Cushman (1816-1876), the
foremost American actress of the nineteenth century,
played in Britain as well as America. One of her most
popular roles was the gypsy witch woman Meg Merrilies
in a stage adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's novel Guy
Mannering (1815). The critic William Winter wrote
that her voice "had in it an unearthly music that made
the nerves thrill and the brain tremble."
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 Matthew
Brady Studio.
"Charlotte Cushman as Meg
Merrilies in Guy Mannering, ca. 1855."
Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of Congress (182)
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 Annotated
prompt book for Guy Mannering,
1850, facing p. 54.
Page 2
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress (183)
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Cushman's Prompt Book
As the leading player in the Broadway
Theater's 1850 production of a play based on Scott's Guy
Mannering, Charlotte Cushman assumed directorial
duties. Her notes in the prompt book orchestrate entrances
and exits, list props, technical cues, and actors' cues.
For stars like Cushman who toured extensively, such detailed
books were indispensable in mounting productions with
short rehearsal times and companies who had not worked
with her or the play.
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First American Writer to
Win British Praise
Washington Irving (1783-1859) was
the earliest internationally successful American writer. The
Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gentleman (1819)
was first published in England, where Irving was living,
on the recommendation of Sir Walter Scott. It was the
first American book to win the acclaim of British critics
accustomed to patronizing American writers as barely
civilized or literate.
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 Washington
Irving.
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey
Crayon, Gentleman.
Inside front cover
Page 1 - Page
2
New York: C. S. Van Winkle, 1819.
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(186)
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 Charles
Dickens.
"The Thriving City of Eden,
as it appeared on paper," in Martin Chuzzlewit.
London: Chapman & Hall, September 1843, Volume 9, p.189.
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(189)
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Dickens's Harsh Picture of America
Angered about American publication
of his work without payment, Dickens portrayed America
negatively in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843) through
the adventures of Martin and his companion. Dickens attacked
American newspapers, politics, commercialism, and deficiencies
in manners, conversation, and the arts. In this illustration,
the characters are sold land in the city of Eden, which
turns out to be a malarial swamp. Americans bitterly
resented the attack.
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Dickens's Second American Visit
During his 1867-1868 lecture tour,
Charles Dickens was the subject of a number of cartoons.
While some celebrated his fame, others satirically commented
on the fact that Dickens had been guaranteed a minimum
profit of $70,000 for the lecture tour after his complaints
about the greed of Americans who pirated his books.
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 William
Glyde Wilkins.
Dickens in Cartoon and
Caricature.
Boston: Bibliophile Society, 1924.
Page 2
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(190A)
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Charles Dickens's Traveling Kit
Charles Dickens made two trips to
America. The 1842 trip resulted in his travel book American
Notes (1842) and the novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844),
both of which outraged Americans with their unfavorable
views of the United States. His second visit, from December
1867 to April 1868, was a highly successful reading tour
of his works. His traveling kit from that time has his
initials.
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 Charles
Dickens's traveling cutlery kit.
Ivory and metal.
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(192)
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 Walt
Whitman.
Draft page from Leaves
of Grass, 1855,
section 14, p. 41.
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress (193)
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Draft Page from Leaves of Grass
This is a rare page from the draft
of the first edition (1855) of Leaves of Grass by
Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Whitman has had many British
admirers ever since his publication of this work.
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning Manuscript
In her lifetime, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning (1806-1861) was widely considered England's
greatest female poet. Her poetry has been popular in
America since her own day. Active in the cultural life
of her day, she was a friend of American artists, in
particular the great American actress Charlotte Cushman.
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This image is not available online.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
"Calls on the Heart."
Holograph manuscript, n.d.
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress (195A)
 Portrait
of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Prints
and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (195E)
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Frost's First Book
From 1913 to 1915 Robert Frost
lived in England, where he met many well-known British poets,
as well as American Ezra Pound. Frost's talent was recognized
in Britain before it was in America. His first two books, A
Boy's Will (shown) and North of Boston (1914)
were published in London by a British company. One of Frost's
best-known poems is shown in his own handwriting.
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Jane Austen in America
The American-produced Jane Austen
Map of England reflects the popularity of the author's
novels in the United States. Recent film versions of Sense
and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Emma (1816),
and Persuasion (1818) have been box office
hits.
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 Molly
MaGuire, designer, and Carol Kieffer Police, illustrator.
"The Jane Austen Map of England."
Los Angeles: Aaron Blake, 1987.
Geography and
Map Division, Library of Congress (195D)
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 Mark
Twain.
Huckleberry Finn.
Page 2
London: Chatto and Windus, 1884.
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(197)
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British First Edition of Huckleberry Finn
Like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain,
or Samuel Langhorne Clemens, (1835-1910) suffered from
the lack of an international copyright law. British and
Canadians published unauthorized editions of his popular
works without paying royalties. To stop these infringements,
Twain began publishing his works in England before issuing
them in the United States, thus gaining British as well
as American copyright protection.
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Oxford Honors Mark Twain
On June 23, 1907, Oxford University
presented Mark Twain with an honorary doctorate. At the
news of his selection, Twain remarked, "I am well aware
-- and so is the rest of Christendom -- that an Oxford
decoration is a loftier distinction than is conferrable
by any other university on either side of the ocean,
and is worth twenty-five of any other, whether foreign
or domestic."
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 Mark
Twain in the Robes He Wore When Receiving his Honorary
Oxford University Degree,
taken August 19, 1907.
Copyprint.
Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of Congress (199)
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 Henry
James.
English Hours.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1905.
Page 2
Henry James Collection,
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(200)
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Henry James
In 1905 Henry James (1843-1916) collected
under the title English Hours his travel
sketches of places in the British isles. Most of them
were articles published in American periodicals between
1872 and 1890, revised with additional sketches. James
lived in England most of his life and became a British
citizen.
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Rudyard Kipling Letter
It is not clear who was the lady to
whom Rudyard Kipling addressed this letter, but the text
indicates she was American. Kipling demonstrated his
talent as an artist in his sketches, including one of
a gruff English gentleman who complains about Americans
to his companion.
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This image is not available online.
Rudyard Kipling.
Letter to "Dear Lady,"
January 6, 1891.
Holograph letter.
Carpenter Collection of Rudyard Kipling,
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(202)
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 Rudyard
Kipling.
"Mowgli's Brothers" from
The Jungle Book,
February 1893, p.1.
Holograph manuscript. Carpenter Collection of Rudyard
Kipling,
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
(203A)
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Jungle Book First Draft
"Mowgli's Brother" is the first story
in The Jungle Book (1895) by Rudyard Kipling
(1865-1936). On the first page is an inscription to Susan
Bishop. Miss Bishop was a childhood friend of Kipling's
wife, an American, and attended her at the birth of her
first child during the winter of 1892, when the Kiplings
were living in Brattleboro, Vermont.
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Thomas Hardy Manuscript
Although best known for his novels,
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) considered fiction inferior
to poetry. From the age of 58, he wrote only poetry.
He was a major influence on Robert Frost, who, like Hardy,
responded intensely to nature and had an extraordinary
ability to describe his regional landscape. "The Forsaking
of the Nest," a poem of nine stanzas first published
in 1912, was later revised to a poem of five stanzas
entitled "The Third Kissing-Gate."
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 Thomas
Hardy.
"The Forsaking of the Nest."
Page 2 - Page
3
Holograph manuscript.
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress (206A)
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 T.S.
Eliot.
"Virginia."
Holograph manuscript, 1959.
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress (207A)
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Poem by T.S. Eliot
American-born poet, playwright and
critic Thomas Sterns Eliot (1888-1965) was one of the
major poets of the twentieth century, best known for The
Waste Land (1922). In 1915, Eliot moved to England,
where he spent the rest of his life, becoming a British
citizen in 1927. He received the Nobel Prize in literature
in 1948
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British Poet Who Settled in America
Wynstan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) was
one of the dominant voices in twentieth century verse.
Born in York, England, and educated at Oxford University,
he came to the United States in 1939 and became a citizen
in 1945. The poetry he wrote in Britain confronted social
issues, but in America he turned to religious themes.
In 1948 Auden received the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for The
Age of Anxiety (1947).
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 W.
H. Auden.
Draft of
"Musée des Beaux Arts,"
n.d..
Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress (209)
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