The late nineteenth century was a golden age for European travel in the United States. For prosperous Europeans, a journey to America was a fresh alternative to the more familiar ‘Grand Tour’ of their own continent, promising encounters with a vast, wild landscape, and with people whose culture was similar enough to their own to be intelligible, yet different enough to be interesting. Their observations of America and its inhabitants provide a striking lens on this era of American history, and a fascinating glimpse into how the people of the past perceived one another. In Unspeakable Awfulness, Kenneth D. Rose gathers together a broad selection of the observations made by European travellers to the United States. European visitors remarked upon what they saw as a distinctly American approach to everything from class, politics, and race to language, food, and advertising. Their assessments of the ‘American character’ continue to echo today, and create a full portrait of late-nineteenth century America as seen through the eyes of its visitors. Including vivid travellers’ tales and plentiful illustrations, Unspeakable Awfulness is a rich resource that will be useful to students and appeal to anyone interested in travel history and narratives.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1840.

The author has produced a full portrait of Carlyle, the man and his works.

Daniel Dunglas Home (1833-1886) was a charismatic medium whose seances were attended by European royalty and eminent Victorians like Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Thrown out by his aunt because of the paranormal events which plagued him since childhood, Home became a 'professional house guest' and medium at the age of 17. During seances he purportedly levitated, handled hot coals and channelled the voices of the dead. This volume, first published in 1877, is an evocative examination of spiritualism which explores the history of the practice via the Greeks, the Romans, and Joan of Arc. Simultaneously attacking fraudulent mediums while celebrating 'true' spiritualist practitioners, this fascinating work details both the criticism and support received by Home and features reproductions of numerous fan letters. Although colourful and impassioned, Home's polemic is written in an amiable style and provides fascinating insights into the life and work of the self-proclaimed 'Grandfather of English Spiritualism'.