Alexis de Tocqueville: an unpublished Letter from America

Abstract

Alexis de Tocqueville maintained an extensive correspondence throughout his life. His family members and very important personalities, French and foreign, are included among his addressees. His letters offer an essential part of his thinking, exposed with the freedom that characterizes the epistolary genre and they represent a component of first importance in all of his writings. The American Letters, written between April 1831 and February 1832 during his journey to the New World, are a good example. Also, to serve as reference of his great work, Democracy in America, they have an exceptional value. One could think that Tocqueville's correspondence, perfectly bounded in time, should have been well studied nowadays. However, one letter addressed to his brother Edouard from New York, dated June 20th, 1831, not yet published, shows that this is not the case. This is the subject of this work.