A01=Bruce Nichols
Author_Bruce Nichols
bronson alcott
Category=NHK
Category=QDHR
elizabeth palmer peabody
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
henry david thoreau
horace greeley
leaves of grass
little women
louisa may alcott
margaret fuller
nathaniel hawthorne
ralph waldo emerson
self reliance
the american scholar
the dial
the house of the seven gables
the scarlet letter
utopianism
walden
walden pond
walt whitman
Product details
- ISBN 9781668094877
- Weight: 519g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 18 Jun 2026
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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A lively and captivating journey through the world of the Transcendentalists, America’s first group of public intellectuals, whose visionary ideas reinvented our culture and politics and remain an inspiration today.
“An impeccable and often dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the Concord iconoclasts clustered around Emerson who helped define what it means to be an American original.” —Douglas Brinkley
In the 1840s, America was a land of utopian promise, and nowhere captured this spirit of possibility better than Concord, Massachusetts. At the heart of this intellectual and cultural revolution was Ralph Waldo Emerson, a national celebrity who brought together a circle of bold and creative free thinkers. In The Emerson Circle, Bruce Nichols delivers a fascinating narrative of this transformative era, breathing life into the friendships and philosophies that comprised the titanic intellectual energy of this American Renaissance.
Concord wasn’t just a town; it was a crucible of innovation and reform. Luminaries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau gathered there, united by ideas that would shape the nation. Nichols recreates this vibrant world, packed with brilliant conversations, emotional correspondences, and the essays, novels, speeches, and poetry that forever marked and changed American culture. Along the way, he shares intimate, surprising details—Thoreau’s frustration with Emerson, Hawthorne’s intense shyness masking deep love and hate—that make these iconic figures human.
This book captures a forgotten utopian moment in our history. Anything seemed possible: abolishing property, money, and marriage, not just slavery; granting equal rights to women; eating vegan diets; banning alcohol and caffeine. These men and women turned away from the Bible in favor of the natural world and science, and they inspired our greatest early writers to create their most original and lasting works.
With vivid storytelling and thought-provoking insights, Bruce Nichols invites us to reimagine the power of ideas to change the world—just as Emerson and his circle did nearly two centuries ago.
“An impeccable and often dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the Concord iconoclasts clustered around Emerson who helped define what it means to be an American original.” —Douglas Brinkley
In the 1840s, America was a land of utopian promise, and nowhere captured this spirit of possibility better than Concord, Massachusetts. At the heart of this intellectual and cultural revolution was Ralph Waldo Emerson, a national celebrity who brought together a circle of bold and creative free thinkers. In The Emerson Circle, Bruce Nichols delivers a fascinating narrative of this transformative era, breathing life into the friendships and philosophies that comprised the titanic intellectual energy of this American Renaissance.
Concord wasn’t just a town; it was a crucible of innovation and reform. Luminaries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau gathered there, united by ideas that would shape the nation. Nichols recreates this vibrant world, packed with brilliant conversations, emotional correspondences, and the essays, novels, speeches, and poetry that forever marked and changed American culture. Along the way, he shares intimate, surprising details—Thoreau’s frustration with Emerson, Hawthorne’s intense shyness masking deep love and hate—that make these iconic figures human.
This book captures a forgotten utopian moment in our history. Anything seemed possible: abolishing property, money, and marriage, not just slavery; granting equal rights to women; eating vegan diets; banning alcohol and caffeine. These men and women turned away from the Bible in favor of the natural world and science, and they inspired our greatest early writers to create their most original and lasting works.
With vivid storytelling and thought-provoking insights, Bruce Nichols invites us to reimagine the power of ideas to change the world—just as Emerson and his circle did nearly two centuries ago.
Bruce Nichols grew up in a Unitarian household, twenty minutes from Concord, Massachusetts. During an almost forty-year career in publishing, he served as publisher of both Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) and Little, Brown and Company, the original publishers of Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott. At HMH, he regularly reissued Thoreau’s works.
