This book is a collection of letters written for readers of his former newspaper the PIONEER of Allahabad, India from the USA from March to October 1889 by 23 year old Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936). He had left India from Calcutta March 9 by sea and visited Burma, Malaya/Singapore and Japan before arriving at San Francisco May 28. The next four months he spent in the United States. Kipling's itinerary included Oregon, Washington Territory, Vancouver British Columbia, Wyoming/Yellowstone National Park, Utah/Salt Lake City, Omaha, Chicago, Buffalo, then June to September with friends in Beaver, Pennsylvania which Kipling calls "Musquash on the Monongahela River." See
http://www.bchistory.org/beavercounty/BeaverCountyTopical/notablepeople/KiplingsBeaverConnection/KiplingsBeaverConnection.html. Thence he also visited Boston and Elmira, New York where he spent two hours with his literary hero Mark Twain.

Eventually 18 pirated unauthorized American editions appeared in book form called AMERICAN NOTES. Kipling published his own copyright version in 1899.This University of Oklahoma Press edition is based on an authorized 1910 New York Art-Type edition, with the addition of Kipling's Interview with Mark Twain.