Books by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the eminent American essayist, poet, and philosopher, stands as a central figure in the transcendentalist movement. His writings celebrate individual intuition, self-reliance, and the profound spiritual connection between humanity and nature. Drawing on both classical learning and the emerging democratic spirit of his era, Emerson's prose invites readers to look inward for truth and creative power.

His essays, lectures, and journals continue to inspire thinkers and writers across generations. Whether exploring the moral force of nature, the value of independent thought, or the pursuit of personal integrity, Emerson's voice endures as a steady guide for those who seek wisdom beyond convention and a deeper understanding of the human spirit.

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279 products


  • 18331836

    Harvard University Press 18331836

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisIn his early lectures we find the first ordering of Emerson’s thoughts. The lectures are the immediate source of much in his essays, whose composition cannot be understood without them. This volume contains among others the lectures on Science, Biography, and English Literature, with extensive textual and informational notes.

    2 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18361838

    Harvard University Press 18361838

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review[T]he really striking fact about this volume is that not only is it a volume that will satisfy the scholar, it also is a volume that every layman who is at all interested in Emerson will want to read. * Chicago Sunday Tribune *The task of editing these pieces [the lectures] for publication has been performed not only with scholarly care and thoroughness but with commendable taste and an eye to the needs of the ordinary literature reader as well as of the special scholar. A general introduction supplies just the amount of information about Emerson’s beginnings as a lyceum speaker that is required, and there are brief and useful introductions to the separate parts. The result is a really important addition to the corpus of Emerson’s works. No reader who cares seriously for the greatest of our wisdom-writers will wish to be without it… There is hardly a page of this volume, however, that is without an interest, and often an extreme interest, for the reader of Emerson. * New York Times *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Philosophy of History 1. Introductory 2. Humanity of Science 3. Art 4. Literature 5. Politics 6. Religion 7. Society 8. Trades and Professions 9. Manners 10. Ethics 11. The Present Age 12. The Individual 2. Address on Education (On Opening the Greene Street School, Providence, R. I., 10 June, 1837) 3. Human Culture 1. Introductory 2. Doctrine of the Hands 3. The Head 4. The Eye and Ear 5. The Heart 6. Being and Seeming 7. Prudence 8. Heroism 9. Holiness 10. General Views Bibliography of Principal Sources Textual Notes and Variant Passages Index

    1 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18381842

    Harvard University Press 18381842

    7 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    7 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18261832

    Harvard University Press 18261832

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe journals (the editing of them is brilliant) are the workshop of a mind. It is amusing to find the young man of 22 writing: ‘My years are passing away. Infirmities are already stealing on me…’; it is tragic to read the husband’s poem beginning ‘And Ellen, when the greybeard years Have brought us to life’s Evening hour’; It is interesting to know he visited Concord prison and went into the cells; but the value of the journals lies in their revelation of Emerson’s mental and spiritual growth. Here is his reading, here are his reflections; here are the germs of his sermons. He is keeping company with Shakespeare and Donne, Montaigne, and Johnson, Wordsworth and Coleridge. Such a volume will command more than one reading. * Times Literary Supplement *The present volume covers the period 1826–1832, during which Emerson passed through two major crises in his life—his wooing of, and brief marriage to Ellen Tucker, who died soon after, and his short service in the ministry before deciding that the calling was not for him. Among the pieces included are sermons and notes for sermons…but there is also verse and personal reflection… As in the earlier volumes, the editors compel admiration for the manner in which they have assembled and organized so disparate a selection of literary notes and scraps. -- John Barkham * Saturday Review Syndicate *Table of ContentsFOREWORD TO VOLUME III The Journals: 1826-1832 Chronology Symbols and Abbreviations PART ONE: THE TEXTS OF THE JOURNALS Journal 1826 Journal 1826-1828 Memo St. Augustine Sermons and Journal Meredith Village Blotting Book Y Blotting Book Psi Blotting Book III PART TWO: THE TEXTS OF THE MISCELLANEOUS NOTEBOOKS Blue Book Pocket Diary 1 Genealogy Blotting Book IV Textual Notes Addenda Index

    1 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18321834

    Harvard University Press 18321834

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade Review[Here is Emerson’s] decision to leave the ministry and the trip to Europe that followed almost immediately… This edition is a serious undertaking, meant to be used for a long time. * Book Week *Table of ContentsFOREWORD TO VOLUME IV The Journals: 1832-1834 Chronology Symbols and Abbreviations PART ONE: THE TEXTS OF THE JOURNALS Q Sicily Italy Italy and France Scotland and England Sea 1833 A Maine PART TWO: THE TEXTS OF THE MISCELLANEOUS NOTEBOOKS France and England Pocket Diary 2 Composition Appendix Textual Notes Index

    1 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18351838

    Harvard University Press 18351838

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe period covered by this volume was the most interesting and perhaps the most important of Emerson’s life, during which he completed and published his first book ‘Nature,’ and delivered his first famous lecture, ‘The American Scholar,’ before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College… Much of the material that went into…‘Nature,’ ‘Self-Reliance,’ ‘Spiritual Laws,’ and other famous essays of the First Series, was first carefully written out in the journals included in this volume… [It] shows better than any other so far the unfolding of Emerson’s mature thought on religious and philosophical subjects, perhaps the most influential in America in the nineteenth century. Like its predecessors, this volume has been edited with learned thoroughness and admirable care. * Virginia Quarterly Review *The journals covering these years are fascinating and rewarding… [Emerson] had a noble mind; and the edition of his journals now in progress is appropriately a noble edition… It is only necessary to affirm that the fifth volume is as handsomely produced and as scrupulously edited as the others. * Times Literary Supplement *

    1 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18381842

    Harvard University Press 18381842

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe span of time covered by these journals must surely be the most important of Emerson’s literary career…This volume, like those in the series that preceded it, is well edited and printed…The journals throw a good deal of light on the meaning of the essays…They have much to say of Emerson’s contemporaries, especially Thoreau, who became an intimate friend during these years. * Virginia Quarterly Review *

    1 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18411843

    Harvard University Press 18411843

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18431847

    Harvard University Press 18431847

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe pages of these five journals from the years 1843 to 1847 document Emerson’s struggle to formulate the true attitude of the scholar and disinterested, independent writer to the vexing question of public involvement. He notes to himself that he “pounds…tediously” on the “exemption of the writer from all secular works.”Table of ContentsFOREWORD TO VOLUME IX The Journals: 1843-1847 Chronology Symbols and Abbreviations The Texts of the Journals U V W Y O Textual Notes Index

    1 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18521855

    Harvard University Press 18521855

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTable of ContentsForeword to Volume XIII The Journals: 1852-1855 Chronology Symbols and Abbreviations PART ONE: THE TEXTS OF THE JOURNALS DO GO VS HO IO NO PART TWO: THE TEXTS OF THE MISCELLANEOUS NOTEBOOKS Pocket Diary 4 Pocket Diary 5 Pocket Diary 6 Appendix Textual Notes Index

    1 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18541861

    Harvard University Press 18541861

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisThese journals show the ripeness of Emerson’s thought overshadowed by the grave problem of slavery. In addition to completing English Traits (1856) and Conduct of Life (1860), Emerson wrote many of the pieces that made up Society and Solitude. He also contributed often to The Atlantic Monthly after helping to found that magazine in 1857.Table of ContentsFOREWORD TO VOLUME XIV The Journals: 1854-1861 Chronology Symbols and Abbreviations PART ONE The Texts of the Journals RO SO VO AC CL PART TWO The Texts of the Miscellaneous Notebooks WO Liberty Pocket Diary 7 Pocket Diary 8 Pocket Diary 9 Pocket Diary 11 Pocket Diary 12 Appendix Textual Notes Index

    1 in stock

    £107.96

  • 18601866

    Harvard University Press 18601866

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe Civil War is a pervasive presence in the journals in this volume. “The war searches character,” Emerson wrote. Both his reading and his writing reflected his concern for the endurance of the nation, whose strength lay in the moral strength of the people.Trade ReviewThat the editors have been able to order this fascinating chaos is a tribute to their patience, intelligence, and skill. There will never have to be another edition. * New York Times Book Review *No American mind stands more influentially for creativity than Emerson’s. And these lifelong records, his journals particularly, provide unique glimpses into his growth… His journalizing was literary practice, but above all, it was a heritage from the unsparing Puritan self-examination of the spirit. * Chicago Tribune *[Emerson’s journals] make the fullness of his humanity and his understanding of the country he was living in unmistakable. By contrast the published works proclaim the various stances he was driven to assume… In the journals he is both more hard-headed and more warm-hearted. * New York Times Book Review *What appeals in this volume is the freshness and nearness of Emerson the person. A man so reserved and scrupulous is only to be known in his private journals. That his earlier editors Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes made him less of a person is well known. This latest volume furthers the restoration of his wildness, his uncertainties, and his originality. * American Historical Review *Table of ContentsFOREWORD TO VOLUME XV The Journals: 1860-1866 Chronology Symbols and Abbreviations PART ONE The Texts of the Journals DL GL WAR VA FOR KL PART TWO The Texts of the Miscellaneous Notebooks HT Pocket Diary 13 Pocket Diary 14 Pocket Diary 15 Pocket Diary 16 Appendix I Journals and Notebooks in the Harvard Edition Appendix II Montreal Herald Report of "Classes of Men" Textual Notes Index

    2 in stock

    £107.96

  • Representative Men

    Harvard University Press Representative Men

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisAs Judith Shklar has pointed out, Emerson built Representative Men around the principle of ‘rotation,’ which had become a political axiom in Jacksonian America—the idea that no man, no matter how imposing, should be accorded permanent authority. Representative Men honors the language of democracy in its very title.Table of ContentsHistorical Introduction Statement of Editorial Principles Textual Introduction REPRESENTATIVE MEN: SEVEN LECTURES 1. Uses of Great Men 2. Plato, or the Philosopher Plato: New Readings 3. Swedenborg, or the Mystic 4. Montaigne, or the Skeptic 5. Shakspeare, or the Poet 6. Napoleon, or the Man of the World 7. Goethe, or the Writer Notes Textual Apparatus Annex A: The Manuscript Appendix 1: The 1850 Compositors Appendix 2: Revisions in the Manuscript Annex B: Parallel Passages Index

    1 in stock

    £26.96

  • MayDay and Other Pieces 1

    Hardpress Publishing MayDay and Other Pieces 1

    15 in stock

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    15 in stock

    £14.20

  • Poems 1

    Hardpress Publishing Poems 1

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    15 in stock

    £15.15

  • Representative Men Seven Lectures 1

    Hardpress Publishing Representative Men Seven Lectures 1

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    15 in stock

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  • Poems 1

    Hardpress Publishing Poems 1

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    15 in stock

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  • Essays First Series 1

    Hardpress Publishing Essays First Series 1

    15 in stock

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    15 in stock

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  • Emersons Complete Works Conduct of Life 1

    Hardpress Publishing Emersons Complete Works Conduct of Life 1

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  • The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson the Conduct of Life 1

    HardPress Publishing The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson the Conduct of Life 1

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  • The Conduct of Life

    HardPress Publishing The Conduct of Life

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    15 in stock

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  • The Conduct of Life

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  • The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

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    15 in stock

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  • Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

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    15 in stock

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  • Essays

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  • Representative Men. English Traits. Conduct of Life

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    15 in stock

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  • The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

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    15 in stock

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  • Works

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    15 in stock

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  • English Traits

    HardPress Publishing English Traits

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  • Select Essays and Poems

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    15 in stock

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  • Works

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  • Essays

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  • Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • Natural History of Intellect and Other Papers

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  • Nature Addresses and Lectures

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  • HardPress Publishing English Traits

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  • HardPress Publishing The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • HardPress Publishing Kossuth in New England a Full Account of the Hungarian Governors Visit to Massachusetts

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  • HardPress Publishing Essays First Series

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  • HardPress Publishing Selected Poems

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  • HardPress Publishing The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • HardPress Publishing Culture Behavior Beauty

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  • HardPress Publishing Essays First Series

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  • HardPress Publishing Nature Addresses and Lectures

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