The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred R. Ferguson, Jean Ferguson Carr, Alfred Kazin

Overview

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Kazin observes in his Introduction, “was a great writer who turned the essay into a form all his own.” His celebrated essays—the twelve published in Essays: First Series (1841) and eight in Essays: Second Series (1844)—are here presented for the first time in an authoritative one-volume edition, which incorporates all the changes and corrections Emerson made after their initial publication.

The text is reproduced from the second and third volumes of The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a critical edition which draws on the vast body of Emerson scholarship of the last half century. Alfred R. Ferguson was founding editor of the edition, followed by Joseph Slater (until 1996).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674267206
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	04/02/1987
Series:	Belknap Press Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	410
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.04(d)

About the Author

Alfred R. Ferguson (1915–1974) was Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Jean Ferguson Carr is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where she writes and teaches in composition, women’s studies, history of the book, literacy, and literary studies, focusing on nineteenth-century American constructions of literacy and letters.

Alfred Kazin (1915–1998) was Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and author and editor of many books, including A Writer’s America: Landscape in American Literature.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Essays: First Series

I. History

II. Self-Reliance

III. Compensation

IV. Spiritual Laws

V. Love

VI. Friendship

VII. Prudence

VIII. Heroism

IX. The Over-Soul

X. Circles

XI. Intellect

XII. Art

Essays: Second Series

I. The Poet

II. Experience

III. Character

IV. Manners

V. Gifts

VI. Nature

VII. Politics

VIII. Nominalist and Realist

Index