Essays and Poems, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

For more than fifty-five years Ralph Waldo Emerson kept a journal, recording his thoughts on books, authors, and religion, among other subjects. In this engrossing volume editor Perry Bliss presents the best from these journals, carefully selecting passages to create both a revealing portrait of this formidable thinker and a social and historical record of the era in which he lived.

Self-Reliance is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains a stirring call for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and to follow their own instincts and ideas. It contains one of Emerson's most famous quotations: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." The essay, possibly Emerson's most...

An anthology of nineteenth-century American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays and poems, including in their entirety his books "Nature: Addresses, and Lectures," "Essays: First and Second Series," "Representative Men," and "The Conduct of Life," as well as his volumes of poetry and other essays, addresses, and poems from his manuscripts.

Emerson's treatise on the nature of friendship. "The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Building on and enriching ideas set forth in "Self-Reliance", Emerson argues that true heroism is self-confidence and persistency in the face of corrosive pressures to conform to society.

This version of Nature is an 1843 revision to the popular essay written and published in 1836. In the original essay, Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism, and suggested that reality can be understood by studying nature. Within the essay, Emerson divides nature into four usages: Commodity, Beauty, Language and Discipline. These distinctions define how humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication...

In "Gifts" Ralph Waldo Emerson muses on the function of and expectations surrounding the giving of gifs. He touches on what gifts communicate about the nature of the giver and receiver, and how the best kind of gift is a gift of love.

In "Manners", Ralph Waldo Emerson expounds on the meaning of customs and politeness in civil society. He argues that the purpose of manners is more to facilitate the creation and proper working of society, and not to establish hierarchies.

This book of twelve essays published in 1875 is a collection of lectures delivered throughout Emerson's career. Composed with his characteristic spark and wit, they are touching reflections on a life well spent. Each chapter begins with lines of verse followed by his narratives which share a common cheerful theme: the world is filled with goodness for those willing to receive it.