[Dutch Travelers in America – Philadelphia – Georgia] Vleeschouwer, Lodewijk

Stukken en Brokken. [“Bits and Pieces”]

Antwerpen: J. E. Rysheuvels, 1851. 312 pp., 12mo. Original printed wrappers. Binding tight. Text in Dutch. Good plus, with a chip to the front wrapper, some edge wear, tape repairs and light soiling. Item #BK0174

An uncommon collection of essays, sketches, and travel narratives by the Belgian journalist Lodewijk Vleeschouwer (1810–1866), including approximately 150 pages devoted to his experiences in the United States between 1828 and 1834. Vleeschouwer traveled through New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Savannah, eventually finding employment teaching languages and philology at the Chatham Academy and Savannah Lyceum in Georgia. He later returned to Belgium, where he became a prominent journalist and satirist.

The American section, titled Brokken uit eene reize door de Vereenigde Staten van Noord-Amerika (“Fragments from a Journey through the United States of North America”), begins with a journey from New York to Philadelphia. Vleeschouwer describes a fierce competition between two steamboat companies, which reduced fares to nothing and eventually offered passengers free meals before one company abandoned the route. He recounts a collision between competing vessels and gives observations on Philadelphia’s streets, public works, boarding houses, and social customs. Other chapters describe American Sunday observances, Quaker meetings, Methodist preaching, and the treatment of Black servants, including a confrontation involving a white guest and a Black servant over the biblical descendants of Cain and Abel.  The later American chapters concern Vleeschouwer’s residence in Savannah, including an extended account of a dispute between two young men following a horse race. The quarrel begins when one man, who is Jewish, takes offense at the name “Shylock,” leading to a challenge to a duel and subsequent legal proceedings. Vleeschouwer concludes with an account of his return voyage to Europe aboard the Olive-branch, departing Savannah for Liverpool. The remainder of the volume consists of satirical sketches, speeches, literary criticism, and essays, including a discussion of phrenology.

A relatively unusual Dutch-language account of American life during the Jacksonian period, written by a European visitor who spent several years living and working in the United States. Howes V135.

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Price: $450.00