Emerson's renown as a lecturer drew him farther away from Concord each year. The railroad opened up the west in the 1840s and 1850s, and as it did, it expanded the lyceum circuit. Emerson had made his first train trip in England (between Manchester and Liverpool) in 1833. His career as a successful lecturer depended upon the railroad. The Fitchburg Railroad opened in Concord in 1844, making it faster and more convenient to get to Boston and, from there, to the rest of the country. Frequent travel and the discomforts of "life on the road" wore on him as he grew older.
In 1845, Emerson delivered a series of lectures on "Representative Men." Representative Men: Seven Lectures was published in Boston by Phillips, Sampson and in London by John Chapman in 1850. In December of 1846, Poems — his first volume of poetry — was published in Boston by Munroe and in London by Chapman (the title pages dated 1847). May-Day and Other Pieces, his second and final volume of poetry, appeared in 1867. Although his abilities as a poet have been variously assessed by contemporary and later commentators, Emerson, like Thoreau, attributed powerful possibilities of expression to poetry.
Emerson made his second trip abroad in 1847. Leaving Thoreau to look after his family, he sailed for Liverpool in October. Lecturing in Manchester, Liverpool, and London, he discovered that he had developed fame and a following in England since his first European trip (1832–1833). He saw Carlyle and Wordsworth again (Coleridge had died), spent time in the company of writers Harriet Martineau, Thomas De Quincey, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, James Anthony Froude, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and geologist Charles Lyell, and met many people active in literary and intellectual circles, politics, and other areas. He also visited Scotland and France. While at Edinburgh, Emerson sat for artist David Scott, who painted a well-known oil portrait (now in the Concord Free Public Library). In France, he visited Alexis de Tocqueville (French author of a book on American democracy) and English poet Arthur Hugh Clough. He returned home at the end of July 1848. In 1849, he lectured on England. His English Traits was published by Phillips, Sampson at Boston in 1856, in London by G. Routledge.
