British Lecturers Research Articles

XVI: A Chronological List of Emerson's Lectures on his British Lecture Tour of 1847–1848

Through their reading of English Traits and of the Journals, students of Ralph Waldo Emerson are aware that he visited England on three occasions and that on his second trip he delivered some lectures there. But few, perhaps, realize the extent of his speaking tour in England and Scotland in 1847–48. Emerson was modest concerning his accomplishments, or at least chose not to regard them as feats worthy of ample recording. His references to his lecturing abroad are casual and fragmentary. Cabot, in the authorized biography, A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, does little to fill in the details, and his chronological list of Emerson's lectures and addresses, incomplete even where speaking engagements in America are concerned, is still more sketchy in its treatment of the British lecture tour. Only through a detailed chronology can a realization of the magnitude of the undertaking be obtained. The following table of lectures and of places where they were given attempts to supply the means for a fuller appreciation of the scope and importance of the venture.

Emerson's British Lecture Tour, 1847-1848, Part II: Emerson as a Lecturer in Britain and the Reception of the Lectures

Emerson's British Lecture Tour, 1847-1848, Part II: Emerson as a Lecturer in Britain and the Reception of the Lectures

Emerson's British Lecture Tour, 1847-1848, Part I: The Preparations for the Tour, and the Nature of Emerson's Audiences

Emerson's British Lecture Tour, 1847-1848, Part I: The Preparations for the Tour, and the Nature of Emerson's Audiences