Public Lecture: Norfolk to New Orleans: Riding, Reading and Writing the Mississippi River, Norwich Forum, June 4th

Harriet Martineau, Jonathan Raban

This June, I'm delighted to be taking part in the UEA Showcase Week taking place at the Norwich Forum as part of the University's 50th anniversary celebrations. More details are available here, and the full schedule of talks (featuring some very hot tickets) is here. At 3pm on June 4th I'm going to be talking about Harriet Martineau and Jonathan Raban - two writers with Norfolk roots who travelled along the Mississippi River at rather different moments in its history. Readers with keen memories may remember that I've written about these two before - Martineau here (and in River of Dreams), and Raban here, if anyone wants to bone up in advance. The full blurb of the talk is below. Hope to see you there.

Heir Hunters

Last year I did some filming for an episode of BBC1's Heir Hunters that finally aired today. I was brought in to tell the story of the unhappy marriage between Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses, and her British husband, Algernon Sartoris. Researching their union was a lot of fun, since it mainly involved digging into nineteenth century celebrity gossip. For a little while at least, Nellie and Algie were quite the golden couple, celebrated in publications across the globe. Then, things rapidly soured...

For a little while you can see the episode here. And I also wrote a post for American Scrapbook that includes a lot of the lovely detail that I couldn't get into the programme (like the descriptions of Nellie by Henry James). That's available here, forever - enjoy.

Nellie Grant and Algernon Sartoris

"Finding Your Roots": In Conversation with Branford Marsalis at the US Embassy

Branford Marsalis, me

Last week I was lucky enough to be asked to take part in an event at the US Embassy organised by PBS America to promote their new documentary series Finding Your Roots. They screened an episode that featured the New Orleans family histories of jazz legends Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. - you can watch a preview, here. Branford Marsalis himself flew in for the event, above, and I was part of a Q&A session with him after the screening. I'd certainly recommend watching the episode (indeed, the series) if you get a chance - it touches on fascinating dimensions of New Orleans history throughout, replaying so many of the issues and moments raised in Southern Queen in a very intimate way.

Gods of the Mississippi

Great news for anyone with even a passing interest in the social and cultural history of the Mississippi River: Michael Pasquier's Gods of the Mississippi is just about to be released by Indiana University Press. I'm delighted to say that I have a chapter in the collection. It's an exploration of a number of antebellum American new religious movements (the Vermont Pilgrims, Mormons, Millerites), their relationship with the Mississippi, and the ways in which echoes of these groups lived on in the writings of early Midwestern realists like Mark Twain, William Dean Howells and Edward Eggleston who grew up around them. But beyond that, this looks to be a very compelling set of essays which should very fruitfully extend our understanding of the river's role in national life.

I'm doubly delighted to say that River of Dreams also gets a kind hat-tip in Michael Pasquier's introduction - alongside Thomas Buchanan's wonderful Black Life on the Mississippi (that I reviewed here). This is what he has to say:

Gods of the Mississippi is available from Amazon.com here, Amazon.co.uk here, and can be previewed on Google Books here.

On Tour

Throughout February I'm embarking on what has turned out to be something of a micro-tour.

♠ On February 6th I'll speaking about Joseph Thompson Hare and other Transatlantic outlaws at Oxford University's new Transatlantic Literature in Context seminar series. English Faculty Seminar Room B, 5-6.30pm.

♠ On February 13th I'll be speaking at the University of Hertfordshire, about Mark Twain, the Mississippi, and other river writings in the decade after the Civil War. Details to follow.

♠ And on February 20th, I'll be talking about Twain again, this time at the University of Birmingham. Details are available here - Arts Building, Room 439, 4pm.

If you're attached to, or in the vicinity of, any of those institutions, come and say hello. Looking forward to it.

BBC History Magazine Travel Special: New Orleans

BBC History Magazine kindly asked me to contribute to the history travel supplement that comes with this month's issue (January 2013). I was very happy to oblige - and, unsurprisingly, picked New Orleans as my historical destination of choice. A few scans below:

UEA Christmas Lectures for Children 2012

(Tickets available here)

I'm very excited to be giving one of the University of East Anglia Christmas Lectures for Children this year.

Out Now: Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers from Charlotte Temple to The Da Vinci Code

I'm happy to say that Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers from Charlotte Temple to The Da Vinci Code (Continuum: 2012) is out now in all formats, including Kindle. Here it is on the Continuum website, Amazon US and Amazon UK. You can read early reviews here.

You can also get a taster of the book on the Bloomsbury Literary Studies blog, who posted an edited extract from Ardis Cameron's great chapter on Peyton Place, here. Enjoy.

Happy Halloween

This October, over on my nineteenth-century popular-culture blog American Scrapbook, I've been taking part in the annual Countdown to Halloween blogging marathon, looking for traces of Halloween in centuries past. I've distilled the essence of those investigations into a guest-post for the I. B. Tauris blog, available here. Enjoy, and Happy Halloween.

Review: American Literary Scholarship

Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men has received a nice mention in Alan Gribben's chapter on Mark Twain in the 2010 edition of American Literary Scholarship. He writes:

America Changed Through Music: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60 - press coverage

America Changed Through Music: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60 - the one day conference and musical extravaganza that I've been organising along with my UEA colleague Ross Hair - took place yesterday, and we couldn't be more delighted with the way it went. There should be some video of the musical performances available on the official website at some point in the not too distant future.

In the run-up to the conference, we were also delighted with the amount of media coverage that the event, and the 60th anniversary of the Anthology, received. I was interviewed for a great article in the Financial Times, "Where the Weird Things Are", by Richard Clayton, which is available here.

"Where the weird things are"

And last weekend I was in-studio with Cerys Matthews on her BBC 6Music show. The audio of that interview is available below. Huge thanks to everyone who helped those things come together, as well as everyone who came along, spoke or performed on the day itself.

Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers - More Advance Praise

I'm pleased to say that Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers from Charlotte Temple to The Da Vinci Code has garnered some more advance praise. The first comes from Leon Jackson, author of the brilliant The Business of Letters: Authorial Economies in Antebellum America:

Must Read breathes new life into the study of best-sellers, rescuing them from not only the enormous condescension of posterity but also from the flattering but often reductive readings of modern academics. With its artful blend of textual analysis, historicization, and theoretical speculation, the contributors challenge us to reread and rethink a host of works, ranging from short stories and sentimental novellas to advice manuals and modern blockbusters. For anyone with an interest in the contours of American print culture from the eighteenth century to the present, Must Read is itself a must read work.

The second comes from Lisa Botshon, co-editor of the essential Middlebrow Moderns: Popular American Women Writers of the 1920s:

This pathbreaking collection provides a unique contribution to the study of American literature, bringing to the fore a broad survey of popular literature from a variety of eras and genres, and bringing to our attention a number of previously neglected yet essential bestselling works. A valuable addition to literary and cultural studies, Must Read is a must read for students and scholars of American popular culture and American literature more generally.

More updates soon.

America Changed Through Music: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60

I'm currently co-organising a one day event to mark the 60th anniversary of Harry Smith's ridiculously seminal Anthology of American Folk Music. The deadline for paper submissions has just ended and we're very excited about the programme of speakers and subjects that's coming together. Above, you can see the original conference artwork by the genius artist and animator Drew Christie. And on the day, we're going to have some free musical performances by modern musicians breathing new life into some of the songs from the Anthology. To find out more please visit the conference website, americachangedthroughmusic.com. September 15th, UEA London - make sure to save the date!

Advance praise for Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers

Some advance praise for Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers (coming soon) from Paul Gutjahr, editor, amongst many other things, of this fantastic anthology of popular nineteenth century literature. He writes:

"Although the past two decades have seen a sizeable increase in scholarly interest in bestsellers in the American context, there remains a great deal of unexplored territory when it comes to such literature. Must Read goes a long way in addressing this deficiency by examining a tremendous range of such literature with great critical care, insight, and theoretical sophistication. Must Read is a must read for anyone interested in American bestsellers."

Review: Journal of Early American History

Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century has been reviewed in the Journal of Early American History. David Anderson (Swansea University) writes:

Thomas Ruys Smith’s new book on the social and cultural milieu of nineteenth century New Orleans [...] [is] a richly documented and vivid history that invokes the individuality, the otherness, of a city that is at once familiar and strangely foreign, beguiling yet daunting, for both tourists and residents alike. 

[...]

Using an eclectic blend of contemporary travel accounts and letters [...] Smith evokes an intriguing portrait of a vivacious, cosmopolitan nineteenth century American city, a city unlike any other.

[...]

Southern Queen is an engaging, lively and accessible narrative [...] In engaging with the costs of memory Smith’s New Orleans is embroiled in a conversation with the past, with the dead who reside in its memory, and with those mythical figures, places and spaces, that continue to have such resonance in the national and international consciousness.

You can read other reviews of Southern Queen here.

BAAS 2012: Missing Ralph Keeler

(Ralph Keeler, via)

Later today I'm going to be speaking at this year's British Association for American Studies Conference, hosted by the University of Manchester. My paper's entitled: "Missing Ralph Keeler: Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and the life and death of a Literary Vagabond." It's a starting point for a longer article I plan to write over the coming months. And if you want to know a little more about the enigmatic figure of Keeler, you can take a look at my new blog, American Scrapbook.

Guest Lecture: Queen's University Belfast

On Wednesday March 14th I'm going to be travelling to Queen's University Belfast to give a paper as part of their American History Colloquium. I'll be talking about outlaw Joseph Thompson Hare, pictured above. The full title is: "'We raked the wilderness': The Dying Confession of Joseph Hare and the Image of the Highwayman in the Antebellum South". It starts at 4pm, and, I believe, is in Peter Froggatt Centre (PFC) 2/018.

This paper comes out of work I was doing last summer, so it'll be nice to finally give it a public airing. And should you wish to make the acquaintance of Hare and his misadventures, there's a version of his story contained here, in P. R. Hamblin's 1836 collection United States Criminal History; Being a True Account of the Most Horrid Murders, Piracies, High-Way Robbers, &c. (Fayetteville, Mason & De Puy). Enjoy. You'll be hearing more about him in due course.

Coming Soon: Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers

It's been a while in the planning, but I'm very pleased to say that Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers from Charlotte Temple to The Da Vinci Code, co-edited with my colleague Professor Sarah Churchwell, will be published later this year by Continuum. Above, a sneak peak of the cover. Below, a little bit about the collection.

Studies in American Culture: “Bring Our Country Back”: Country Music, Conservatives, and the Counter-Culture in 1968.

My article, '“Bring Our Country Back”: Country Music, Conservatives, and the Counter-Culture in 1968', has been published in Studies in American Culture (34.1, October 2011).

"All distinction of colour was lost"

(via NYPL)

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the second and final fight between English boxing champion Tom Cribb and American ex-slave Tom Molineaux. Taken together, both fights make up one of the most significant Transatlantic moments in early nineteenth century culture, encapsulating so many of the animating tensions of the age. As Kasia Boddy put it, the encounters between Cribb and Molineaux were amongst "the most mythologized events of the Regency."

Review: Times Higher Education

Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century has been reviewed in Times Higher Education by Professor Helen Taylor (Exeter). She describes the book as an "important new study", and writes:

"Although New Orleans' early colonial and more recent years are well documented, Ruys Smith's book is one of only a handful of 19th-century chronicles. It covers the key events and phenomena that gave the city such resonance in the global imagination [...] When so much hagiographic and melodramatic cultural production ("literary treacle", in the geographer Peirce F. Lewis' words) has been poured over New Orleans, Ruys Smith deserves credit for this clear-sighted and judicious survey of its most complex and fascinating century."

You can read the full review here.

History Today: The Big Uneasy

History Today, August 2011

My article on New Orleans and its historic relationship with disasters of one kind and another is up now on the History Today website, and out in print next week. It was a pleasure to write, and they've done a lovely job with the illustrations. I think it pinpoints a lot of things in miniature that I touch on in depth in Southern Queen. So enjoy! Below, further information about some of the figures that I mention, and links to some of the sources that I used.

Out Now: Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century

Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century, is out today, published by Continuum.

BBC History Magazine: New Orleans in 1858

My travel guide to New Orleans in 1858 is out today in this month's BBC History Magazine (June 2011). This was a fun piece to write, not least because it threw up some interesting research questions. Much of the material I had to hand because of Southern Queen, but it also caused me to have to think about some peculiar specifics.

Apocalypse on the Mississippi!

Having not long completed a book chapter on the significance of the Mississippi River for new religious movements in America in the years before the Civil War, I got a profound shock of recognition when I read this ABC report about Harold Camping’s predictions of the forthcoming apocalypse. One of the signs that the end is nigh?

The Mississippi River: Recent flooding has prompted some speculation that pervasive crop destruction is sure to follow, resulting in the widespread famine that's scheduled to help usher in the Apocalypse.

In their own way, these kind of pronouncements fit into a significant American tradition. There is a long history of prophesying Armageddon, particularly along or in relation to the Mississippi. Indeed, the current interest in the possibility of imminent rapture is as nothing compared to events in the nineteenth century, as the example of William Miller attests.

Kindle Editions

The release of Southern Queen might be just around the corner, but Kindle editions of my other two books have just been added on Amazon. Click on the covers above to buy or for a free preview. And stay tuned for more updates soon.

Review: Gateway: The Magazine of the Missouri History Museum

River of Dreams was reviewed in issue 28 of Gateway, the magazine of the Missouri History Museum. David Lobbig writes:

"Thomas Ruys Smith vividly connects his readers to an important time in the explosive peopling of our nation [...] which taken together is like the relearning of a favourite story or song long forgotten [...] What we know in more modern terms as our "strong, brown god" has a rich, important history and myth hardly known. It is a river flowing with archetypes. Perhaps it is not possible for us to see the river with the same eyes as those who once strove against its strength and unpredictability to be sustained by its life. But those people saw their dreams reflected in the Mississippi, and this accounting gives a proper perspective so that readers today, sitting on its banks, may see themselves more clearly."

Review: Journal of Illinois History

Blacklegs, Card Sharps and Confidence Men has been reviewed in the Journal of Illinois History. Greg Hall writes:

“To bring to life the cultural world of the Mississippi River Valley of the nineteenth century is no easy task […] Thomas Ruys Smith does this with a compilation of stories that focus on specific elements of that cultural world that in some ways are quite alien to our own. Yet the legacy of the period can still resonate within our historical memory […] Therefore it is a significant contribution to our understanding of American cultural history that Smith provides here, because before the cowboy and the gunslinger, there was the riverboat gambler.”

You can read the whole review here.

Guest Post: Mardi Gras in 1873

Waiting for the parade in 1873 - Edward King's The Great South

To commemorate Mardi Gras 2011, I've contributed a guest post to Rob Vellela's American Literary Blog about the implications, literary and otherwise, of Mardi Gras in 1873. You can read it here.

Southern Queen: More Advance Praise

I'm very pleased to say that Southern Queen has garnered some more advance praise, this time from Thomas C. Buchanan, author of the essential Black Life on the Mississippi: Slaves, Free Blacks, and the Western Steamboat World:

"Thomas Ruys Smith puts his readers in the minds of the many travellers who visited the city, allowing us to understand the creation of the myth of New Orleans as well as its physical reality. He deftly mixes engaging storytelling and thoughtful historical analysis on every page. The book is a major contribution to the history of the Queen City."

Southern Queen: More Advance Praise

The City of New Orleans, Currier & Ives, 1885

Huge thanks to Anthony Stanonis, author of the wonderful Creating the Big Easy: New Orleans and the Emergence of Modern Tourism, 1918-1945, for the following commentary on Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century:

It's easy to get lost in New Orleans. Even a native, such as myself, can become confused not only by the condition and direction of the streets but also by their names – names that recall the diverse cultures that have made the Southern Queen so unique among American cities. A walk or drive or streetcar ride quickly becomes a trek through history.

Review: Year's Work in English

River of Dreams got a nod in Year's Work in English Studies 89 (2010):

"In recent years, Twain's travel writing has received renewed attention in scholarship. Especially strong examples of this trend are Thomas Ruys Smith's River of Dreams: Imagining the Mississippi Before Mark Twain..." 

Southern Queen: Advance Praise

Above, the first draft of the jacket for my new book, Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century (click for bigger). Below, some advance praise from J. Mark Souther, author of the excellent New Orleans on Parade: Tourism and the Transformation of the Crescent City (Louisiana State University Press, 2006):

"Richly appointed with voices of the city's denizens and of those who visited, Southern Queen reveals the myriad ways that the nineteenth century shaped the New Orleans we know today. In this highly readable book, Smith offers a welcome synthesis of the scholarship on this important epoch in the history of the Crescent City."

Southern Queen in the Continuum Catalogue

Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century is featured in a variety of Continuum catalogues this season (here), but this spread from the US Trade and Academic Highlights Catalogue (pdf here) is the most fulsome (click for bigger):

River of Dreams: 75 Great Literature Books Published by LSU Press

As part of their 75th anniversary celebrations, Louisiana State University Press has put together a series of lists highlighting "75 great LSU Press titles in various subjects." I'm very proud to say that River of Dreams was selected as one of their 75 great literature books.

Coming Soon: Southern Queen

Above, a first glimpse of the cover of my new book, Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century, to be published Summer 2011 by Continuum. Here's the blurb:

In the nineteenth century, there were few cities in the world more remarkable than New Orleans. Cosmopolitan, alluring, dangerous – a profound mélange of Old World sensibilities and New World possibilities – it was a place unlike anywhere else in America. Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century examines the city’s rise and fall in this crucible period, charting its transformation from a small colonial backwater on the banks of the Mississippi, through the apex of its power and influence in the antebellum years, to the years of poverty and hardship that followed the Civil War. It is a story characterised by the city’s reputation for decadence, exoticism and illicit pleasures – the glittering carnival mask that the Big Easy still presents to the world. But it is also a story punctuated by a host of disasters that provide stark counterpoints to the glamour of Mardi Gras. Throughout the nineteenth century, the city that care was supposed to forget was visited by wars, epidemics, riots, and – from slavery to Reconstruction and beyond – continual and violent racial tension. Yet through it all, the Southern Queen developed a profound romantic appeal that proved irresistible to an astonishing cast of visitors - travelers, writers, artists and musicians of every kind. It was, in short, an extraordinary time in the history of an extraordinary place. This is the untold story of the life and times of nineteenth century New Orleans, and it is an account that illuminates our understanding not just of the past, but of the present and future of one of America’s most iconic places.

I'll update with a firm release date when it's available. In the meantime, more information is available on the Continuum website, and you can preorder from Amazon here (or here, if you're in the UK).

Review: Louisiana History

River of Dreams: Imagining the Mississippi Before Mark Twain has been reviewed by Daniel Claro in Louisiana History (50:2, Spring 2009). He writes, "this book succeeds in depicting the wonderfully rich literary context that inspired and informed Twain's career."

For a sneak preview of what I'm currently working on, click here.