Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Prose

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.; Drawing from the ten volumes of the 'Collected Works', Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson have gathered some of Emerson's most memorable prose published during his lifetime and under his direct supervision. The editors have enhanced those selections with additional writings to produce the only anthology that represents in a single volume the full range of Emerson's written and spoken prose genres - sermons, lectures, addresses, and essays - that took on their public life in the pulpit or lecture hall, or on the printed page. Publisher Marketing: Upon its completion, The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson" (1971 2013) was hailed as a major achievement of scholarship and textual editing. Drawing from the ten volumes of the Collected Works," Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson have gathered some of Emerson s most memorable prose published during his lifetime and under his direct supervision. The editors have enhanced those selections with additional writings to produce the only anthology that represents in a single volume the full range of Emerson s written and spoken prose genres sermons, lectures, addresses, and essays that took on their public life in the pulpit or lecture hall, or on the printed page. Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Prose" demonstrates the remarkable scope of Emerson s interests, from science, literature, art, philosophy, natural history, and religion to pressing social issues such as slavery and women s rights, to the character of his contemporaries, including Lincoln and Thoreau. Emerson s classic essays Nature," Self-Reliance, and Experience complement his less familiar but no less vital texts, including the deeply heterodox sermon on The Lord s Supper, which effectively announced his resignation from the ministry, and late essays on American Civilization, Character, and Works and Days. Edited according to the most rigorous modern standards, Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Prose" provides an authoritative compendium of writings by one of America s most significant literary figures and public intellectuals."

Contributor Bio:  Emerson, Ralph Waldo Herman Melville said that Ralph Waldo Emerson possessed a "self-conceit so intensely intellectual that at first one hesitates to call it by its right name," though he later admitted Emerson was "a great man." Both were probably true. The Sage of Concord gave more than 1500 speeches in his lifetime, and Self-Reliance is probably his most important work. Contributor Bio:  Bosco, Ronald A Ronald A. Bosco, Distinguished Professor of English and American Literature, State University of New York at Albany, is General Editor of the Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Contributor Bio:  Myerson, Joel Joel Myerson, Carolina Distinguished Professor of American Literature Emeritus at the University of South Carolina, is Textual Editor of the Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.