Boz, New York and a Temperance Aphorism

Abstract:Visiting America in 1842, Dickens found the problem of drunkenness in the process of being vigorously addressed. He was questioned about the prevalence of alcohol consumption in his fiction and criticized for an inferred less than totally serious regard for America’s efforts to confront the problem by promoting abstinence. His response was to question the logic and potential effectiveness of that approach. He reacted similarly to such an approach at home, consistently reiterating the view that there was “such a thing as Use without Abuse” in personal correspondence, and, sometimes coupled to arguments for moderation in other matters, in his journalism. During his 1842 visit, declining in a previously uncollected letter an invitation to attend a temperance-observing event in New York, he instead sent a striking aphorism, which thereafter appeared in temperance-promoting literature.