Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Prose

Upon its completion, The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (19712013) was hailed as a major achievement of scholarship and textual editing. Drawing from the ten volumes of the Collected Works, Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson have gathered some of Emersons most memorable prose published during his lifetime and under his direct supervision. The editors have enhanced those selections with additional writings to produce the only anthology that represents in a single volume the full range of Emersons written and spoken prose genressermons, lectures, addresses, and essaysthat took on their public life in the pulpit or lecture hall, or on the printed page.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Prose demonstrates the remarkable scope of Emersons interests, from science, literature, art, philosophy, natural history, and religion to pressing social issues such as slavery and womens rights, to the character of his contemporaries, including Lincoln and Thoreau. Emersons classic essays Nature, Self-Reliance, and Experience complement his less familiar but no less vital texts, including the deeply heterodox sermon on The Lords Supper, which effectively announced his resignation from the ministry, and late essays on American Civilization, Character, and Works and Days. Edited according to the most rigorous modern standards, Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Prose provides an authoritative compendium of writings by one of Americas most significant literary figures and public intellectuals.