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The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My daughter sent me one of these e-mail questionnaires intended to reveal your personality. One of the questions on it was, "What person, living or dead, would you give $10,000 to spend an hour with?" In that moment, I typed in "Ralph Waldo Emerson". He's not the only one, but I certainly would beg, borrow or steal $10,000 for an hour with him -- not Thoreau, not Whitman, not Schiller... but Emerson I would. And Goethe I would. But my simple heart lies closer to Emerson than to Goethe.

I have gone through 4-5 of his selected works, and this is one of my two favorite.

30 years ago, when I entered high school, we studied the Transcendentalists in a basic lit class, and something about Emerson just glowed in my mind. The teacher told me that with time I'd get to know other authors better, and Emerson would take his place alongside a legion of others. But he was in a degree mistaken. Emerson never did diminish. I have never fallen out of love with him. And the relationship is a serious one. When the shadow of doubt creeps over me that my presence on this planet might be some kind of horrendous mistake, I still crack open a volume of Emerson. And he has never failed to recall me to myself.

Does it make any sense to call this man dead? I cannot read any essay he ever wrote without hearing a call to life and to my better self. More than a pot of Folgers Emerson can keep me up at night, more than any man or woman I've met in this life he makes me think and wonder and love both- his prose is so honest that it "rises naturally to poetry." There is a reason our "greatest poets" lived in such awe of him. This man knew, felt, thought, lived the full range of man and soul and never flinched. In fact, he wrote it down. He is unmatched. Any time you spend reading this would be better spent buying this book. He is among the greatest of Americans. Enjoy.

With all the books written about philosophy today, and in the past, this should be perhaps, by far, the most sought after work. Camus and Dostoevsky have contributed much to thought and philosophy of existentialism, but this seems to, in its own way, surpass any labeling of a type of philosophy.

Self-Reliance has to be one of the most understood pieces in the collection. Mr. Emerson speaks in a tone that is easily understood and thoughts explained in plain english, no degree required to understand. And once understood, ideas are easy to apply to our own life to better understand what we have read.

Without a doubt, this book is a must in any thinkers library. Walt Whitman says it best about this book, "I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil." A genius of a book.

All I can say is Emerson changed my life. Once I read "Self-Reliance" in school, his writing sparked my interest. I read a few more of his essays, then became "addicted" to this book. Despite its length, I read all of his essays and poems in 6 months. I highly recommend this book to anyone. Emerson is a genius. Everyone should read at least one of Emerson's essays in their lifetime. They are amazing.

After perusing the wonderful assortment of Emerson's work in this marvelous compendium, I was inspired by the sheer genius of this man. I found his work inspirational because it reminded me how insightful and profound we humans can be. As we go through the day-to-day of modern life, it has become apparent that our culture believes the more basic you speak the more real you are being---well after reading Emerson, modern "realness" can take a hike. Here's to the intellect!

Buy this book, sit back and read what thoughts we are capable of forging, and enjoy!

After reading the essay, "Self Reliance," I had a new perspective on my own intellectual capacity.

Emerson's faith in reason, truth, and the potential of the individual, are inspiring.

These essays are a great introduction to learning to trust yourself to find your own spiritual path.

He is religious with out being dogmatic. He wonderfully marries the intellect with wonder. mmmm.

Highly recommended.

There is no doubt that Emerson is a predominant figure in American thought and literature, but it is important to remember that in this case Emersons work superseded himself. And I wonder, who is he, sitting in his study, to tell us about nature? I have a feeling that I would know more about nature if I stuck my head out the door. "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." Does he not damn himself with those words, he who writes and writes yet never actually does? In terms of writing there is none of the homey "nature" feel that Thoreau has, Thoreau's use of paradox, cutting prose, and onomatopoeia reflect the call of nature far more effectively than Emerson's discursives. Thoreau also took into account the "rank savagery" of nature instead of Emerson's unrealistic idealism that says "everything is good." By conventional moral standards nature encompasses all. I know the power of Emerson's message remains unvitiated by those hypocrisies and errors, but it is hard to be totally objective when reading his work. It would be like reading Nietzsche knowing that he went to Church every day waving a cross....

Ever since first reading Emerson in college, I've been looking forward to revisiting his essays. Considering this collection is nearly 850 pages long, one would be on solid ground saying that everything Emerson ever wrote is "essential." His best known essays are included here: "Nature," "The American Scholar," "The Transcendentalist," "The Lord's Supper," "The Poet," and my favorite, "Self Reliance," together with essays on subjects including love (pp. 190-200), friendship (pp. 201-214), prudence (pp. 215-224), experience (pp. 307-326), character (pp. 327-340), nature (pp. 364-377), politics (pp. 378-389), farming (pp. 671-581), Plato (pp. 420-445), Napoleon (pp. 447-466), Abraham Lincoln (pp. 829-833), Carlyle (pp. 837-841), and Emerson's friend and neighbor, Thoreau (pp. 809-825). About Thoreau, Emerson writes, "he was bred to no profession, he never married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely no doubt for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and Nature . . . It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him. He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths of his own" (pp. 810; 817-18).

Emerson "opens doors and tells us to look at things for ourselves" (p. xiii) poet, Mary Oliver (THE LEAF AND THE CLOUD), writes in her excellent Introduction to this collection. Like Thoreau, Emerson's writing stays with you for life. "The invariable mark of wisdom," he writes in "Nature," "is to see the miraculous in the common" (p. 38). "It is better to be alone than in bad company," he says in "The Transcendentalist" (p. 90). "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude," he writes in "Self-Reliance" (p. 136). "If we live truly, we shall see truly" (p. 143). In the same essay he says, "We must go alone. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching" (p. 145). "We live amid surfaces," he observes in "The Poet," "and the true art of life is to skate well on them" (p. 315).

Whether you're new to Emerson or not, page after page, this recently-published collection of his "essential writings" will appeal to any reader interested in experiencing an original American thinker.

G. Merritt

Having read piece-meal through alot of the Trancendentalists (but never picked up anything more than a quote from Emerson), I picked up this book expecting just to read a couple of essays for perspective and stow it away on my shelves for reference.

Thirty-six hours later I was setting the book onto my shelves, but for the sole purpose of retiring for some much needed sleep before spending another five or six hours finishing the book. The editors deserve a tremendous amount of credit for putting the essays and letters together in a way that allows the reader to walk cleanly through the book without losing sight of the author. Having finished the book, I have to admit that Emerson is in a dead-heat with Throreau (for me) as the most inspiring and intelligent of the time. Amazingly clean read with delightful insights that are still relevant today.