The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Modern Library Classics) by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Introduction by Mary Oliver
Commentary by Henry James, Robert Lee Frost, Matthew Arnold, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Henry David Thoreau

The definitive collection of Emerson's major speeches, essays, and poetry, The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson chronicles the life's work of a true "American Scholar." As one of the architects of the transcendentalist movement, Emerson embraced a philosophy that championed the individual, emphasized independent thought, and prized "the splendid labyrinth of one's own perceptions." More than any writer of his time, he forged a style distinct from his European predecessors and embodied and defined what it meant to be an American. Matthew Arnold called Emerson's essays "the most important work done in prose."

INCLUDES A MODERN LIBRARY READING GROUP GUIDE

Table of Contents:
Introduction by Mary Oliver

NATURE
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR
AN ADDRESS
THE TRANSCENDENTALIST
THE LORD'S SUPPER

ESSAYS: FIRST SERIES
History
Self-Reliance
Compensation
Spiritual Laws
Love
Friendship
Prudence
Heroism
The Over-Soul
Heroism
Intellect
Art

ESSAYS: SECOND SERIES
The Poet
Experience
Character
Manners
Gifts
Nature
Politics
Nominalist and Realist
New England Reformers
PLATO: OR, THE PHILOSOPHER
NAPOLEON: OR, THE MAN OF THE WORLD

ENGLISH TRAITS
I.First Visit to England
II.Voyage to England
III.Land
IV.Race
V.Ability
VI.Manners
VII.Truth
VIII.Character
IX.Cockayne
X.Wealth
XI.Aristocracy
XII.Universities
XIII.Religion
XIV.Literature
XV.The "Times"
XVI.Stonehenge
XVII.Personal
XVIII.Result
XIX.Speech at Manchester

CONDUCT OF LIFE
Wealth
Culture

SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE
FARMING
POEMS
Good-bye
The Problem
Uriel
The Rhodora
The Humble-Bee
The Snow-storm
Ode
Forbearance
Forerunners
Give All to Love
Threnody
Concord Hymn
May-Day
The Adirondacs
Brama
Merlin's Song
Hymn
Days
Character
Walden
Lines to Ellen
Self-Reliance
WebsterEZRA RIPLEY, D.D.
EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW
JOHN BROWN
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
THOREAU
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CARLYLE

Commentary
Reading Group Guide

"I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil."
--Walt Whitman

Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mary Oliver is the author of The Leaf and the Cloud, West Wind, and A Poetry Handbook, among others. Over the past two decades she has taught at various colleges and universities--Case Western Reserve, Bucknell, Sweet Briar College, the University of Cincinnati, and Bennington College in Vermont. She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Hobe Sound, Florida.

Modern Library

Pub Date: September 12, 2000

1.8" H x 8.0" L x 5.2" W

880 pages

paperback