Touring Anglo-America: Emerson as Transatlantic Lecturer

Focusing on Emerson, this chapter opens with a discussion of his early lectures on English and American literature and culture from the 1830s and 1840s, in particular the early Boston lecture series on ‘English Literature’ and the later course on ‘New England’. The chapter then offers a discussion of Emerson’s British lecture tour of 1847–48, which focuses both on his perception in the British press and on his engagement with his transatlantic audiences. The chapter’s two final sections move from Emerson’s later American lectures and speeches on transatlantic topics to English Traits, the book that eventually grew out of his British tour. The key argument of the chapter is that across his career on the lecture stage Emerson capitalised on the inherent characteristics of performance (the fugitive nature of live deliveries and the changing composition of audiences) to experiment with a diplomatic voice that allowed him to cater to British and American sentiments at the same time.