One of Fortune's 'Best Books of 2021' When Ralph Waldo Emerson published his seminal essay on self-reliance in 1841, the United States was still reeling from the effects of a calamitous financial collapse four years earlier. His positive vision for the power of individualism and personal responsibility was issued in a climate of panic and uncertainty, at a time when the values of society and humanity were shifting. Emerson's text is widely available to read online, but this new edition, produced with Design Observer, elevates his wisdom through the printed word. The global pandemic of 2020 has reshaped our world as well as our thinking, but Emerson's call to independence remains as relevant and energizing as ever. Written as the first waves of the virus surged, Jessica Helfand's twelve accompanying essays address various aspects of artistic engagement - writing, drawing, thinking, making - expanding on the spirit of Emerson's essay to reimagine the process and practice of what it means to be truly creative. Presented in a covetable pocket-book format intended to be read, carried, consulted and to inspire throughout our new daily lives, and featuring two marker ribbons for easy reference, this is a timeless book for all places and all seasons.

'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.' Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) was an American essayist and poet. One of the young nation's first recognised public intellectuals, he championed the writing of Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman and opined on everything from the evils of slavery to the glories of solitude. His essays such as Self-Reliance argued for a distinctly American style of philosophical individualism, untethered to hidebound traditions and prejudices. Edited by professor David Mikics (The Annotated Emerson) and enhanced with gorgeous woodcuts by Charles W. Smith, this collection of Emerson's essays and poetry is a beautiful introduction to one of America's greatest writers and thinkers.

The six essays and one address in this volume outline the great transcendentalist's moral idealism as well as hinting at the later scepticism that colored his thought. In addition to the celebrated title essay, the others included here are "History," "Friendship," "The Over-Soul," "The Poet" and "Experience," plus the well-known and frequently read Harvard Divinity School Address.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Penguin is republishing Emerson's classic work in an affordable, high quality edition, using the original text and artwork.

Known for challenging traditional thought and for his faith in the individual, Emerson was the chief spokesman for the Transcendentalist movement. His poems speak to his most passionately held belief: that external authority should be disregarded in favor of one's own experience. From the embattled farmers who "fired the shot heard round the world" in the stirring "Concord Hymn," to the flower in "The Rhodora," whose existence demonstrates "that if eyes were made for seeing, / Then Beauty is its own excuse for being," Emerson celebrates the existence of the sublime in the human and in nature. Combining intensity of feeling with his famous idealism, Emerson's poems reveal a moving, more intimate side of the man revered as the Sage of Concord.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the leading figures in the thought and literature of our civilisation. He was an essayist, critic, poet, orator and popular philosopher. As a writer, he was always concerned about his audience and his peers. Emerson's essays are a series of loosely related impressions, maxims, proverbs and parables. 'The Art of Successful Living' is a compilation of three of his well-known essays -- Love, Friendship and Self-Reliance. In these essays, he challenges and investigates the age-old traditions and insists on the interpenetration of the ideal and the real, of the spiritual and the material.

Through his writing and his own personal philosophy, Ralph Waldo Emerson unburdened his young country of Europe's traditional sense of history and showed Americans how to be creators of their own circumstances. His mandate, which called for harmony with, rather than domestication of, nature, and for a reliance on individual integrity, rather than on materialistic institutions, is echoed in many of the great American philosophical and literary works of his time and ours, and has given an impetus to modern political and social activism. Larzer Ziff's introduction to this collection of fifteen of Emerson's most significant writings provides the important backdrop to the society in which Emerson lived during his formative years.

The selections include Emerson s major sermons, lectures, essays, addresses, and poems, as well as excerpts from his journals, notebooks, and correspondence. "Contexts" addresses the topics of American Transcendentalism, philosophy, and Emerson's contemporary reception. "Criticism" includes thirteen twentieth-century essays by O. W. Firkins, Stephen E. Whicher, Perry Miller, Joel Porte, Hyatt H. Waggoner, Julie Ellison, Michael T. Gilmore, Barbara Packer, Stanley Cavell, Cornel West, Len Gougeon, Richard Poirier, and Saundra Morris. A Chronology, Selected Bibliography, and Index are included."

A brilliant essayist and a master of the aphorism ( Our moods do not believe in each other; Money often costs too much ), Emerson has inspired countless writers. He challenged Americans to shut their ears against Europe s courtly muses and to forge a new, distinctly American cultural identity. But he remains one of America s least understood writers. And, by his own admission, he spawned neither school nor follower (he valued independent thought too much). Now, in this annotated selection of Emerson s writings, David Mikics instructs the reader in a larger appreciation of Emerson s essential works and the remarkable thinker who produced them.

Full of color illustrations and rich in archival photographs, this volume offers much for the specialist and general reader. In his running commentaries on Emerson s essays, addresses, and poems, Mikics illuminates contexts, allusions, and language likely to cause difficulty to modern readers. He quotes extensively from Emerson s "Journal" to shed light on particular passages or lines and examines Emerson the essayist, poet, itinerant lecturer, and political activist. Finally, in his Foreword, Phillip Lopate makes the case for Emerson as a spectacular truth teller a model of intellectual labor and anti-dogmatic sanity.

Anyone who values Emerson will want to own this edition. Those wishing to discover, or to reacquaint themselves with, Emerson s writings but who have not known where or how to begin will not find a better starting place or more reliable guide than "The Annotated Emerson."

In July 1839 Emerson wrote in his journal: "A lecture is a new literature...only then is the orator successful when he is himself agitated & is as much a hearer as any of the assembly. In that office you may & shall...yet see the electricity part from the cloud & shine from one part of heaven to the other." In this final volume of the early lectures we see the mature lecturer, directing himself toward that eloquence to which he aspired and finding a new vocation. With these lectures-ten from the series "Human Life," nine from the series "The Present Age," the "Address to the People of East Lexington," and two surviving lectures from the series "The Times"-Emerson produced virtually all his earned income from 1838-1842. The volume includes a biographical and critical introduction. A comprehensive index has been carefully prepared for the three volumes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays and poems on the transcendental movement in the United States became some of the most important literary pieces in American History. In this culmination of essays, Emerson takes the reader through different forms of philosophies that attempt to explain the world and man's purpose within it. Heavily vested in the philosophy of transcendentalism, though not one to label himself a true follower of the movement, Emerson believed that spirituality and wholeness were central to the ways in which humans could place themselves within nature. Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson is a collection of integral works that paved the way for much influential literature to come, including, Louisa May Alcott, and Margaret Fuller. With an eye-catching new cover and an informative note about the author, this edition of Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson is both modern and readable.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays and poems on the transcendental movement in the United States became some of the most important literary pieces in American History. In this culmination of essays, Emerson takes the reader through different forms of philosophies that attempt to explain the world and man's purpose within it. Heavily vested in the philosophy of transcendentalism, though not one to label himself a true follower of the movement, Emerson believed that spirituality and wholeness were central to the ways in which humans could place themselves within nature. Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson is a collection of integral works that paved the way for much influential literature to come, including, Louisa May Alcott, and Margaret Fuller. With an eye-catching new cover and an informative note about the author, this edition of Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson is both modern and readable.

Together in one volume, Emerson's "Nature" and Thoreau's "Walking, " is writing that defines our distinctly American relationship to nature.

A classic collection of critical essays, poems, and letters from one of the greatest minds of 19th-century America, now in a beautiful new package. Revised reissue.

Emerson's Essays have become the signature writings of the famous American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Not only did these essays turn heads and open eyes in the mid nineteenth century, but they are still doing the same today. His spiritual insights can be seen most profoundly in New Thought and the work of Ernest Holmes and the Science of Mind philosophy. So much so, that specific essays are required reading in New Thought introductory classes. One teacher who has earned the esteem of spiritual leaders throughout New Thought, Dr. Carol Carnes has now provided readers with the specific essays that influenced Ernest Holmes the most: Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Spiritual Laws, Compensation, and Circles. Each chapter includes an essay and Carol's commentary along with her insightful questions for the reader. The entire book has been edited to allow each reader to easily understand and grasp these concepts on a personal level in the world of today.