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Expanding our understanding of what it meant to be a nineteenth-century author, Amanda Adams takes up the concept of performative, embodied authorship in relationship to the transatlantic lecture tour. Adams argues that these tours were a central aspect of nineteenth-century authorship, at a time when authors were becoming celebrities and celebrities were international. Spanning the years from 1834 to 1904, Adams's book examines the British lecture tours of American authors such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mark Twain, and the American lecture tours of British writers that include Harriet Martineau, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, and Matthew Arnold. Adams concludes her study with a discussion of Henry James, whose American lecture tour took place after a decades-long absence. In highlighting the wide range of authors who participated in this phenomenon, Adams makes a case for the lecture tour as a microcosm for nineteenth-century authorship in all its contradictions and complexity.

Historically, before the Speech from the Throne may be tabled, let alone debated, in each chamber of Parliament a private members' public bill was introduced 'pro forma' meaning for form' s sake). This tradition goes back 400 years in Britain and like many ancient traditions some of its significance has been forgotten over time. In 2008, the Canadian Government broke with that tradition and introduced government bills summarizing the claim of privilege it identified as being enjoyed by each chamber. This paper reviews the history of 'pro forma' bills, placing them in their original context so as to show that the claim of privileges and rights, all of which were fought for and obtained before the advent of responsible government and are the cornerstones of the legislative branch of government, are more multilayered than is described in these two new bills. It notes that the very act of substituting these new bills is reflective of the increasing domination of the legislative agenda by the Crown. It concludes by recommending that the new format be modified and that MPs and Senators who are not Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries be selected as movers for the 'pro forma' bill, and that bills be chosen that better embrace the full breadth of rights and privileges claimed by the Commons, the Senate and members of Parliament. Perhaps the largest surrender of one of the rights claimed by the pro forma bill concerned the issue of supply - that is the money needed for the annual operations of the executive branch. In 1706, when concern was raised about how the right to legislate on 'any matter' might impact on the country's finances, something that was a greater concern at the end of the 17th Century than by middle of the 18th Century, let alone today, the Commons adopted a resolution stating that \"this House will receive no petition for any sum of money relating to public service, but what is recommended from the Crown\". After all, it was not Parliament's intent to take management of the executive branch away from the King, something that ironically occurred later via responsible government, it was only to establish itself as the people' s representative body operating unconstrained by the Crown. So, in 1713, Standing Order 66 was adopted which says the Commons can \"not vote money for any purpose, except on a motion of a Minister of the Crown\". This was a very modest accommodation to the Crown at the time, but it had the unintended consequence of letting the Crown regain control of Parliament over time. The monarch is only Head of State in our model of responsible government. The Head of State, pursuant to what A. V Dicey identified as constitutional conventions, is obligated \"to secure the ultimate supremacy of the electorate as the true political sovereign of the state\".11 This limits the Monarch's (and thus Governor General's) role with respect to the executive branch. In Walter Bagehot's often quoted saying, he or she has only the right to be consulted, to encourage and to warn.12 Lord [Byng] was doing nothing more than that, so the motion introduced by Mackenzie King in lieu of a pro forma bill was not a symbol of the Commons' defiance of the Crown but rather was the Crown's intended defiance of Parliament and the electorate which is embodied in the person of the Sovereign. Since this motion was treated as a proforma bill, it never proceeded to a vote. Had it proceeded, it would have had the unfortunate consequence of redefining the Governor General's reserve powers as Head of State, since Parliamentary supremacy means that Parliament has every right to limit or extinguish Royal prerogatives.