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Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. Educated at Harvard and the Cambridge Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister in 1826 at the Second Church Unitarian. The congregation, with Christian overtones, issued communion, something Emerson refused to do. "Really, it is beyond my comprehension," Emerson once said, when asked by a seminary professor whether he believed in God. (Quoted in 2,000 Years of Freethought edited by Jim Haught.) By 1832, after the untimely death of his first wife, Emerson cut loose from Unitarianism. During a year-long trip to Europe, Emerson became acquainted with such intelligentsia as British writer Thomas Carlyle, and poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He returned to the United States in 1833, to a life as poet, writer and lecturer. Emerson inspired Transcendentalism, although never adopting the label himself. He rejected traditional ideas of deity in favor of an "Over-Soul" or "Form of Good," ideas which were considered highly heretical. His books include Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Divinity School Address (1838), Essays, 2 vol. (1841, 1844), Nature, Addresses and Lectures (1849), and three volumes of poetry. Margaret Fuller became one of his "disciples," as did Henry David Thoreau. The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits, 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882. Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.
1890
1983
1996
1883
of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Other Works
1950
Nature and other essays
1908
1981
2013
2022
1837
1883
The Self-Help Classics of Ralph Waldo Emerson
2014
2015
The Wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson Paraphrased
2017
1982
1992
1844
1844
First and Second Series, and NATURE
1910
The Unparalleled Vision of Personal Power from America's Greatest Transcendental Philosopher
2018
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature & Henry David Thoreau's Walking
2013
2011
1914
Essential Writings
2006
First and Second Series. --: 1
2010
First Series - Vol. 2
1883
Essential Writings on Politics and Social Reform
2004
Success through Self-Reliance
2013
2012
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Guide to Prosperity
2011
The Wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson as Inspiration for Daily Living
1991
Emerson’s Essays, First Series
2009
1867
First and Second Series. --: 1
2015
2011
2022
2000
[Original Edition]
2019
Selected And Edited, With Introduction And Notes, By Edna H.L. Turpin
2015
1950
1850
2012
2010
2013
1836
Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson
2003
1867
An Essay and Other Selections
2003
2011
1841
1841
2011
1926
2007
1965
First Series
1842
1867
1834
2007
Second Series
1842
2019
The Republic, Timaeus, Critias, Meno and Essay
2017
1837
1909
1994
1940
The Five Foot Shelf & The Shelf of Fiction
1722
1860
2010
Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson Illustrated with Amazing Cloud Photography & 3 Bonus Books Amazing Animals Cutest Babies 1, 2, & 3
2015
1914
2012
1946
An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
1841
Essential Essays of Emerson & Thoreau
1997
2008
Twelve Chapters
2001
Second Series
2008
2026
1841
2010
2010
2024
2010
First Edition
1876
1973
Poems
2004
1889
1920
1912
2023
1836
1957
2003
2000
1841
First and Second Series
1800
1841
2004
Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Summer on the Lakes in 1843, Essays, Memoirs, Reviews, Narratives, Poems & Biography by Julia Ward Howe
2013
2012
1921
2014
The Man of the World
2009
The Prince; Power; The Art of War
2019
1860
First and Second Series
1844
1983
1856
An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series
1841
1860
2010
1983
Selections from every day in the year from the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
1902
Second Series (Charles E. Merrill Program in American Literature
1969
1860
2015
1982
The Ultimate Collection
1875
2023
2011
Self-Reliance. Compensation
1837
1850
2023
2010
1961
2007
1941
1876
Essays and Journals
1968
Ralph Waldo Emerson in His Time
1979
1950
2009
2005
2015