Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and poet, a leader of the philosophical movement of transcendentalism. Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Seven of his ancestors were ministers, and in 1829 Emerson became minister of the Second Church (Unitarian) of Boston. In 1832 Emerson resigned from his pastoral appointment because of personal doubts about administering the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. He toured England, where he met several British writers, including Walter Savage Landor, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, and William Wordsworth.

When he returned to the United States in 1833, Emerson settled in Concord, Massachusetts, and lectured in Boston. His most detailed statement of belief was presented in his first published book, Nature (1836), which was published anonymously. The volume has come to be regarded as Emerson's most original and significant work, offering the essence of his philosophy of transcendentalism. The first volume of Emerson's Essays (1841) includes some of his most popular works, including "History," "Self-Reliance," "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," "Love," "Friendship," "Prudence," "Heroism," "The Over-Soul," "Circles," "Intellect," and "Art." The second series of Essays (1844) includes "The Poet," "Manners," and "Character." In 1846 his first volume of Poems was published. Several of Emerson's lectures were collected in the volume Representative Men (1850). The Conduct of Life (1860) was the first of his books to enjoy immediate popularity. Included in this volume of essays are "Power," "Wealth," "Fate," and "Culture." This was followed by a collection of poems entitled May Day and Other Pieces (1867). --Encarta®