This book is a cultural history of modern authors traveling through America on the US lecture circuit that focuses on the surprising scenes that came out of these tours such as Oscar Wilde lecturing to Chicagoans on hard work and practicality, W. B. Yeats helping to set up the Irish exhibit at the St. Louis World’s Fair, or Gertrude Stein making newsreel recordings to play alongside feature films. In analyzing such moments, the book makes a case for public lecturing as a longstanding and vital form of American mass media that was unique in the way it could be construed as both serious education and spectacular entertainment.