ABSTRACT
In November 1852 Anne Thackeray Ritchie left for his first lecture-tour of the United States; and one of the first evenings out that he had there was devoted to hearing Henriette Sontag sing at the Boston Melodeon. When Thackeray—exceptionally—felt tempted to stray into metaphysical regions in his letters, German—including the vocabulary for devaluing such excursions—came naturally to his pen. The impresario J. T. Fields, to whom we owe a great deal of information about Thackeray's doings and sayings in the United States, has a revealing passage about his continuing obsession with Goethe's first great European and world-wide success. At Werther's first meeting with Lotte she was betrothed to Albert, but not yet a 'married lady'—unlike Thackeray's beloved Jane, married to his friend Brookfield when he met her for the first time. By the time Thackeray penned his various comments on Werther—including his famous comic poem—he could hardly be accused of iconoclasm.
