Sails in February for European tour. Visits English towns and cathedrals. Through Nortons meets Leslie Stephen, William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, John Ruskin, Charles Darwin, and George Eliot (the “one marvel” of his stay in London). Goes to Paris in May, then travels in Switzerland in summer and hikes into Italy in autumn, where he stays in Milan, Venice (Sept.), Florence, and Rome (Oct. 30–Dec. 28). Returns to England to drink the waters at Malvern health spa in Worcester because of digestive troubles. Stays in Paris en route and has first experience of Comédie Française. Learns that his beloved cousin, Minnie Temple, has died of tuberculosis.

1870–72

Returns to Cambridge in May. Travels to Rhode Island, Vermont, and New York to write travel sketches for The Nation. Spends a few days with Emerson in Concord. Meets Bret Harte at Howells’s home April 1871. Watch and Ward, his first novel, published in Atlantic Monthly (Aug.–Dec. 1871). Serves as occasional art reviewer for the Atlantic, January–March 1872.

1872–74

Accompanies Aunt Kate and sister Alice on tour of England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Germany from May through October. Writes travel sketches for The Nation. Spends autumn in Paris, becoming friends with James Russell Lowell. Escorts Emerson through the Louvre. (Later, on Emerson’s return from Egypt, will show him the Vatican.) Goes to Florence in December and from there to Rome, where he becomes friends with actress Fanny Kemble, her daughter Sarah Butler Wister, and William Wetmore Story and his family. In Italy sees old family friend Francis Boott and his daughter Elizabeth (Lizzie), expatriates who have lived for many years in Florentine villa at Bellosguardo. Takes up horseback riding on the Campagna. Encounters Matthew Arnold in April 1873 at Story’s. Moves from Rome hotel to rooms of his own. Continues writing and now earns enough to support himself. Leaves Rome in June, spends summer in Bad Homburg. In October goes to Florence, where William joins him. They also visit Rome, William returning to America in March. In Baden-Baden (June–August) and returns to America on September 4, with Roderick Hudson all but finished.

1875

Roderick Hudson serialized in Atlantic Monthly from January (published by Osgood at the end of the year). A Passionate Pilgrim and Other Tales published January 31. Tries living and writing in New York, in rooms at 111 E. 25th St. Earns $200 a month from novel installments and continues reviewing, but finds New York too expensive. Transatlantic Sketches, published in April, sells almost 1,000 copies in three months. In Cambridge in July decides to return to Europe; arranges with John Hay, assistant to the publisher, to write Paris letters for the New-York Tribune.

1875–76