Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.

He is today seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society.

Collected here in one convenient volume is Ralph Waldo Emerson's First Series and Second Series of essays.

The collection includes both Self-Reliance and Nature.

Essays - First Series

1. History

2. Self-Reliance

3. Compensation

4. Spiritual Laws

5. Love

6. Friendship

7. Prudence

8. Heroism

9. The Over-Soul

10. Circles

11. Intellect

12. Art

Essays - Second Series

1. The Poet

2. Experience

3. Character

4. Manners

5. Gifts

6. Nature

7. Politics

8. Nominalist and Realist

9. New England Reformers

2018 Reprint of Selections from Emerson's Essays: First Series [1841] and Second Series [1844]. Essayist, poet, and philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a founder of American Transcendentalism, a philosophy emphasizing self-reliance, introspection and the importance of nature for the human being. He was a prescient critic of the dehumanizing tendencies of modern society, especially the then nascent industrialization, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. The six essays selected from Essays, First Series (1841) and Essays, Second Series (1844) offer a sampling of his views outlining his moral idealism as well as a hint of the later skepticism that colored his thought. In addition to the celebrated title essay, Self-Reliance, the others included here are History, Friendship, The Over-Soul, The Poet, and Experience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.

He is today seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society.

Collected here in one convenient volume is Ralph Waldo Emerson's First Series and Second Series of essays.

The collection includes both Self-Reliance and Nature.

Essays - First Series

1. History
2. Self-Reliance
3. Compensation
4. Spiritual Laws
5. Love
6. Friendship
7. Prudence
8. Heroism
9. The Over-Soul
10. Circles
11. Intellect
12. Art

Essays - Second Series

1. The Poet
2. Experience
3. Character
4. Manners
5. Gifts
6. Nature
7. Politics
8. Nominalist and Realist
9. New England Reformers

Transcendentalism was the first major intellectual movement in U.S. history, championing the inherent divinity of each individual, as well as the value of collective social action. In the mid-nineteenth century, the movement took off, changing how Americans thought about religion, literature, the natural world, class distinctions, the role of women, and the existence of slavery.
Edited by the eminent scholar Lawrence Buell, this comprehensive anthology contains the essential writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and their fellow visionaries. There are also reflections on the movement by Charles Dickens, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. This remarkable volume introduces the radical innovations of a brilliant group of thinkers whose impact on religious thought, social reform, philosophy, and literature continues to reverberate in the twenty-first century.

What I write, whilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world: but yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was that wrote so many continuous pages.-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

In his essay Circles (1841), Emerson writes about how fluid the universe is and the circular patterns that can be seen in it. He maintains that there are no perceptions that are so important they might not seem meaningless in the light of new ideas. That's why, he argues, people gain most when they learn to live with change.

ESSENTIAL WORKS OF TRANSCENDENTALISM IN ONE CONVENIENT VOLUME

Henry David Thoreau's masterwork, Walden, is a collection of his reflections on life and society.

Civil Disobedience is an essay in which he argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice.

Walking is a transcendental essay in which Thoreau talks about the importance of nature to mankind, and how people cannot survive without nature, physically, mentally, and spiritually, yet we seem to be spending more and more time entrenched by society.

Within Nature, Emerson divides nature into four usages-Commodity, Beauty, Language, and Discipline. These distinctions define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication with one another, and their understanding of the world.

The American Scholar is a Speech, it was organized into four sections that detail the current issues with man and lays out the road to becoming an American scholar.

Self-Reliance contains the most thorough statement of one of his recurrent themes-the need for each person to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. Emerson emphasizes the importance of individualism and its effect on a person's satisfaction in life, explaining how life is 'learning and forgetting and learning again'.

Revolutionary Ideas Rephrased for Today

In Everyday Emerson, bestselling author Sam Torode rephrases the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson in contemporary language. The goal is to make Emerson's wisdom applicable to our daily lives, showing that Transcendentalism isn't a relic of the past--it's a way of thinking and seeing the world that's still valid and vital.

This book covers Emerson's pathbreaking early lectures, featuring full paraphrases of The American Scholar, The Divinity School Address, The Transcendentalist, and more. It also includes paraphrased excerpts from Emerson's speeches advocating for social reform, the abolition of slavery, and women's rights.

Sam Torode's introduction and notes provide an overview of Emerson's life and major themes, and explore the relevance of his philosophy today. Everyday Emerson can be read on its own, or as an aid to studying the original works.

This is the first book in a series which also includes: Living from the Soul: The 7 Spiritual Principles of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Secrets of the Mind: Ralph Waldo Emerson's Keys to Expansive Mental Powers.

A Kind of Pantheism: Escape from Cosmic Pessimism and the Quest for a Biocentric Ethic explores how such nineteenth-century transcendentalists as Henry David Thoreau and John Muir advanced a biocentric ethic that recognized the intrinsic worth of both plants and animals. This ethic required a pantheistic cosmology to be coherent, however. As science progressed, with developments in evolutionary biology and ecology, the paths of environmental ethics and animal rights diverged. But at the turn of the twentieth century, the nature writer Joseph Wood Krutch, inspired by quantum theory, provided a crucial link that reconnected these fields--a contribution often overlooked even by his own biographers.
This book traces the historical development of humanity's attitudes toward the non-human world, highlighting the influence of philosophical, religious, and scientific ideas. In addition to Krutch, it brings attention to such lesser-known figures as Henry Stephens Salt and John Howard Moore, emphasizing their roles in shaping biocentric thought. Ultimately, the book argues that animal rights and environmental ethics are two expressions of the same biocentric outlook. By focusing on Krutch's unique contribution, the book offers a way for secular thinkers to reclaim a pantheistic ethic. In the process, A Kind of Pantheism solves the problem of cosmic pessimism--which postulates the cold and meaningless universe implied by modern science, a concept that often undercuts the very ethic it suggests. Through the process of free inquiry, new answers emerge.

Daily inspiration from American philosopher and transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson

Featuring excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays, poems, and lectures, Everyday Emerson offers 365 snippets of wisdom and insight from one of America's greatest writers and philosophers. An astute observer of both nature and society, Emerson's writing touches on themes of individuality, freedom, and human potential, all of it shot through with a profound love and awe of the natural world.

The excerpts in Everyday Emerson are inspiring and thought provoking--a daily invitation to engage the world with imagination and intention. In addition to daily quotes, the end of the book also includes selections from Emerson's beloved essay Self-Reliance. Both longtime appreciators of Emerson's work and readers who would be intimidated by a complete book of essays will find something delightful in its pages.

Ralph Waldo Emerson transformed America by writing in an utterly unique, personal, and insistently optimistic voice about matters that concern us to this day: our lives alone and with others, the true sources of identity, and the specifically American promise of freedom and equality for all. A principal voice of the transcendentalist movement, Emerson embodies an independent American intellectual tradition rooted in deep moral convictions and the pragmatic ability to adapt to changing circumstances. This volume contains Emerson's most consequential essays, selected by NYU University Professor Ulrich Baer, including Self-Reliance, Politics, Experience, and Friendship, as well as writings about political issues. The introduction by Harold Bloom explains Emerson's unrivaled status as America's foremost philosopher. This beautifully curated Warbler Press edition includes an illuminating biographical timeline of Emerson's life and work.

ESSENTIAL WORKS OF TRANSCENDENTALISM IN ONE CONVENIENT VOLUME

Henry David Thoreau's masterwork, Walden, is a collection of his reflections on life and society.

Civil Disobedience is an essay in which he argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice.

Walking is a transcendental essay in which Thoreau talks about the importance of nature to mankind, and how people cannot survive without nature, physically, mentally, and spiritually, yet we seem to be spending more and more time entrenched by society.

Within Nature, Emerson divides nature into four usages-Commodity, Beauty, Language, and Discipline. These distinctions define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication with one another, and their understanding of the world.

The American Scholar is a Speech, it was organized into four sections that detail the current issues with man and lays out the road to becoming an American scholar.

Self-Reliance contains the most thorough statement of one of his recurrent themes-the need for each person to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. Emerson emphasizes the importance of individualism and its effect on a person's satisfaction in life, explaining how life is 'learning and forgetting and learning again'.

This book continues to describe Harri Aalto's unique experiences and approach to Self-realization, providing a compelling and colorful - sometimes humorous - understanding through descriptions, personal experiences, and short stories. As an added bonus, and to emphasize the personal nature of realization, Harri has invited many of his friends to describe their own transformations into the awakened state.

Alex: Such a relief and wonderful surprise. All these years I had misunderstood that I was only a limited person. In fact, my heart developed an astounding, delicate feeling where the simplicity of my new experience was almost unbelievable.

Annabel: The light that I first realized has filled every atom, every rip, tear, hole, and space that was once dark, empty, vacuous, - all these unlit places have filled with the pure light of my own consciousness.

Samantha: I suddenly knew that I had been looking for realization in the wrong direction. I was looking in my past flashy experiences, in descriptions of enlightenment, in expectations and intellectual understandings, rather than just being my Self. After this realization, everything in my life dramatically changed. A subtle thread of bliss began to permeate my feelings; my perceptions deepened; a calm sense of knowingness arose.

Robert: My consciousness began to expand greatly; I saw the core of my being as expanding layers of tumbling light within myself. This happened about one year ago, and the experience of my inner Self has never left. I have noticed that I now have way less aches and pains. I spend a lot of time laughing and being light-hearted, with less emotional upset.

Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.

- Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle (1863)

Life Without Principle (1863) is an essay written by Henry David Thoreau that easily transcends time with its themes of the busyness of life and man's pursuit of wealth. Thoreau asserts that society should place less value on acquiring money and more on living life. While his philosophical and political writings had little influence on his contemporaries, Thoreau's influence on political leaders and reformers such as Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr., is a testament to the philosophies presented in this work. This is a must-read for Thoreau's followers and for those looking for guidance for a well-lived life.

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Published in the mid-19th century, Walden chronicles Henry David Thoreau's life secluded from society as he lived in a small cabin at Walden Pond. One of the most compelling books in American literature, Walden is a reminiscence of self-discovery that resonates even more so in today's hectic world. A journey to self-discovery, Thoreau's two years, two months, and two days spent living in a natural surrounding provides us with the insight to his renewed spirituality and a guide to simple living and self-reliance.

Included is Thoreau's famous essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.

To coincide with the bicentennial of Thoreau's birth and TarcherPerigee's publication of Expect Great Things: The Life of Henry David Thoreau, here is a sumptuous rediscovery edition of the first illustrated volume of Thoreau's classic, as originally issued in 1897.

In 1897, thirty-five years after Thoreau's death, Houghton Mifflin issued a two-volume Holiday Edition of Walden illustrated with thirty remarkable engravings, daguerreotypes, and period photographs. In 1902 the publisher collected the work into a single volume. Now, to mark the bicentennial of Thoreau's birth in 1817, this timeless landmark is reproduced with all of the original illustrations and the complete text of his mystical, practical, magisterial record of a life in the woods.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Character (1844)

Character (1844), by Ralph Waldo Emerson, is connected to the author's other writings in which he attempted to define the values that are central to the philosophical system he was creating. Character, according to Emerson, is a form of greatness which can be perceived by its effects more than by any direct manifestation. Evidence of character is a cheerful self-sufficiency, as well as by a person's incessant growth of the soul.

The Essential Henry David Thoreau Book Collection Contains four of Thoreau's best works:

• Walden, Or Life in the Woods
• On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
• A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
• Walking

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves-sometimes split into quarters-which grind on each other.

-Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle (1863)

Life Without Principle and Other Essays is a collection of Henry David Thoreau's most influential works which have transcended time and paved the way for political leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Included in this volume are Civil Disobedience (1849), Slavery in Massachusetts (1854), A Plea for Captain John Brown (1860), Walking (1862), and Life without Principle (1863). These five essays are Thoreau's most quoted and quintessential, a must-read for all those who want to gain deep philosophical knowledge and who are fans of one of the most noted intellectuals of all time.

Unique Elements

• Biographical Sketch by Emerson's son, Edward Waldo Emerson
• About the Author/Timeline
• 
  

A TIMELESS Literary Classic by RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Essays: First Series by AMERICAN author RALPH WALDO EMERSON is a book of essays first published in 1841 in the UNITED STATES.

Twelve classic essays in this volume, from America's philosopher of transcendentalism, are: History: Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over-Soul, Circles, Intellect, and Art.

Sneak Peak

'There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.'

Title Details

• 1841
• Essays

A collection of seven most notable works from the father of American transcendentalism, Included in this collection:

1. Nature, Emerson divides nature into four usages-Commodity, Beauty, Language, and Discipline. These distinctions define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication with one another, and their understanding of the world.
2. The American Scholar, is a Speech, it was organized into four sections that detail the current issues with man and lays out the road to becoming an American scholar.
3. Essays: First Series, is a series of essays written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in 1841, concerning transcendentalism.
4. Essays: Second Series, is a series of essays written by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1844, concerning transcendentalism.
5. Representative Men, is a collection of seven lectures (including on Plato, Emanuel Swedenborg, Michel de Montaigne, William Shakespeare, Napoleon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published as a book of essays in 1850.
6. English Traits (including his essays on land, manners, truth, character, art and more of the English nation and its people)
7. The Conduct of Life, is a collection of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson published in 1860. In this volume, Emerson sets out to answer the question of the times: How shall I live? It is composed of nine essays, each preceded by a poem. These nine essays are largely based on lectures Emerson held throughout the country, including for a young, mercantile audience in the lyceums of the Midwestern boomtowns of the 1850s.