Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures
The major works of Emerson's most productive period in their entirety: "Nature: Addresses and Lectures," "Essays: First and Second Series," "Representative Men," "English Traits," and "The Conduct of Life."
I go about the process of reading with a pencil or a pen, underlining now and then when I'm struck by something. Opening this very generous volume of Emerson's writings, I found myself underlining every sentence, every word, so that by the second or third page, I just gave up and made a mental note from then on to consider everything in the book as being underlined. Whoever you are and wherever you are (yes, even if you're from the south), you're sure to find something in Emerson's work--many things probably--that will stay with you indefinitely. The Emerson of "Self-Reliance"--genius as he is--is trying to alert each of us to our own genius. It is the ultimate "self-help" book. "A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages." If this seems somewhat contradictory coming from Emerson, you need only read a few pages further and Emerson will set you straight on contrariety.
Along with all these wonderful essays and lectures, this 1,300-page Library of America hardbound edition also has his astonishing book "The Conduct of Life" and assorted uncollected prose. Emerson also left behind a lifetime's worth of journals, which I've heard are equally great, and I very much look forward to poring over them in the future. --Reviewer: Daniel Fineberg from Northridge, California USA
Emerson: the medium is the message.
This book is the complete essays and lectures of ralph waldo emerson. It contains everything you could want from emerson, save his journals. His writing is beauty in it's truest form. What he speaks is what you have forever felt to be true. When he warns against self-distrust in self-reliance you feel that he is not only speaking to you, but speaking for you. Reading this book is not only seeing what he has written, but is a demonstration of what he has written. When he writes in "self-reliance" of the reoccuring situation where people have to take their truth from another, the medium becomes the message. Emerson's work as presented in this volume has been under rated by philisophical circles for years. Here you will see that not only is he a great essayist, but that (while unconventional)he is a great philosopher. --Reviewer: John Edward Rael III from America, Colorado
