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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
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.
1 J. E. Cabot, A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston, 1887), ii, 710–803.
2 The towns where Emerson lectured were Barnard Castle, Beverley, Birmingham, Chesterfield, Derby, Driffield, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Paisley, Perth, Preston, Ripon, Sheffield, Worcester, and York. Quite probably he spoke at Rochdale also. If Emerson gave a lecture at Rochdale, the totals are increased by one. Cf. comment on Rochdale in the chronology.
3 These records were generously made available to me through the courtesy of the Emerson Memorial Association, to which I am grateful for many favors.
4 The Manchester lecture on “Goethe” was originally scheduled for November 18, but was shifted to the twenty-third because of the Annual Soirée (announcement in the Manchester Times, November 15).
5 Later entitled “Books.”
6 This was the initiatory meeting of this new branch of the Roscoe Club.
7 In his engagement book, Emerson has written opposite this date the title, “The Humanity of Science.” He delivered instead, however, the lecture on “Napoleon.” (Besides the Sheffield Times, the following newspapers indicate that “Napoleon” was given: Sheffield Mercury, January 15; Sheffield and Rotheram Independent, January 15.)
8 Here again the engagement book shows a different subject, “Napoleon.” “Napoleon” was the Sheffield lecture given on January 12. Evidently Emerson transposed the two lectures for Sheffield.
9 In his engagement book for this date, Emerson has made the following correction. He has crossed out Edinburgh and substituted the abbreviation: “14. Monday. Glasg.” (See note following.)
10 From some confusion apparent in Emerson's engagement book, it is obvious that arrangements for lectures in Edinburgh and Glasgow were either made at the last minute or that Emerson himself was not fully informed as to his schedule. In the engagement book, Edinburgh is quite correctly entered under February 11 as the scene of the first lecture in Scotland. But in the case of the rest of his engagements in the two cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, there are several corrections in Emerson's own calendar. I am indebted to W. Addis Miller, Esq., secretary of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, for information on the Edinburgh lectures. Mr. Miller very kindly furnished me with the necessary data from the report of the Philosophical Institution for 1848 to establish the correct chronology. They corroborate the partial report of the lectures given by The Scotsman (which omits mention of the last lecture), and they agree with and substantiate Emerson's own corrections in his engagement book.