The Letters of Matthew Arnold V.5; 1879-1884

The emotional and moral centre of this collection is the series of letters written during Arnold's first American visit, during which he ranged from New York and New England to Madison, Chicago, Richmond, Washington, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec. Like most visiting British luminaries, he meets everyone, everywhere, including the president and former president, the Delanos, the Roosevelts, the Vanderbilts and especially Andrew Carnegie. But the visit - a lecture tour taken to pay off his sons debts - had other and far more significant repercussions, for Arnold was accompanied by his wife and by his elder daughter, who met the man she was to marry - the direct cause of a second American visit and, in due course, of a flourishing branch of Arnold descendants in the United States.