Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume I: Nature, Addresses, and Lectures

by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert E. Spiller, Alfred R. Ferguson

Overview

In 1849 Ralph Waldo Emerson collected in one volume all of his published work he thought worthy of preservation that had not been contained in the two series of Essays (1841, 1844) and the Poems (1847). Included were the essay Nature (1836); four orations, “The American Scholar,” “The Divinity School Address,” and two others; and five lectures which had appeared in The Dial.

As the first volume of a projected new Collected Works, this edition of Nature, Addresses, and Lectures now provides for the first time a definitive text based on collation of all editions in which Emerson might have had a hand, together with a wholly new introduction and extensive notes. The recently published Journals and Lectures from this period help bring to this volume a fresh perspective on the first and formative stage of Emerson’s career as a public figure and man of letters.

Introduction and Notes by Robert E. Spiller; Text Established by Alfred R. Ferguson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674139701
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1971
Series:	Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson Series , #1
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	382
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alfred R. Ferguson (1915–1974) was Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Text

1. Nature

Editors' Note

Introduction

Chapter I: Nature

Chapter II: Commodity

Chapter III: Beauty

Chapter IV: Language

Chapter V: Discipline

Chapter VI: Idealism

Chapter VII: Spirit

Chapter VIII: Prospects

2. Addresses

The American Scholar

The Divinity School Address

Literary Ethics

The Method of Nature

3. Lectures

Man the Reformer

Lectures on the Times

Introductory Lecture

The Conservative

The Transcendentalist

The Young American

Notes

Parallel Passages

Textual Apparatus

Hyphenations

Alterations in Copy—Text and Rejected Variants

Index

Editorial Reviews

This volume presents the most definitive, critical, and unmodernized text of Emerson's major published writings from the years 1836-42.

Choice

The editorial information does not dwarf the work being edited, or make the book unwieldy. This volume of the new Works will serve all needs, from those of the mythical 'general reader' to the most serious Emerson scholar.

American Literature