author
W. (William) Faux
Best known for a vivid travel journal of the United States in 1818–1820, this English farmer wrote with the curiosity of a practical observer. His account was aimed at would-be emigrants and remains a useful window into everyday American life on the early frontier.
1 Audiobook
Faux's Memorable Days in America, 1819-20; and Welby's Visit to North America, 1819-20, part 2 (1820)
by W. (William) Faux, Adlard Welby
About the author
William Faux is known for Memorable Days in America, a journal based on his tour of the United States from late 1818 to mid-1820. In the book’s original framing, he described himself as an English farmer, and the journey was presented as an effort to gather firsthand evidence about the prospects for British emigrants.
His writing focuses less on literary flourish and more on what he saw around him: travel conditions, farming, settlement, and social life, including material on Mr. Birkbeck’s Illinois settlement. That practical, observant style gives the book much of its lasting interest.
Modern readers usually encounter Faux through later editions and reprints, including the 1905 Early Western Travels version edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites. Firm biographical details about his life beyond the book are not easy to confirm from the sources reviewed here, so he is best understood through the work itself and the firsthand record it preserves.