Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

The collection contains a range of prose and poetry addressing some of Emerson’s major concerns—nature and the self, imagination and the poet, religion and social reform—as he explores the enduring question “How shall I live?” Historical appendices include primary materials on Transcendentalism; the contemporary debate about the nature of biblical miracles; other authors’ responses to Emerson as a writer and thinker; and the development of his complex reputation as a representative American.

Copy-texts in this edition are the first published versions of each text, restored here as Emerson’s initial audience would have read them.