When Fanny Trollope set sail for America in 1827 with hopes of joining a Utopian community of emancipated slaves, she took with her three of her children and a young French artist, leaving behind her son Anthony, growing debts and a husband going slowly mad from mercury poisoning.

But what followed was a tragi-comedy of illness, scandal and failed business ventures. Nevertheless, on her return to England Fanny turned her misfortunes into a remarkable book. A masterpiece of nineteenth-century travel-writing,

'Domestic Manners of the Americans' is a vivid and hugely witty satirical account of a nation and was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic.