Essays First Series

Name: Essays First Series
Brand: Author's Republic
Availability: InStock
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
ISBN: 9781662145889

Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrator: Samet Burke

Unabridged: 8 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Author's Republic

Published: 02/16/2020

Categories: Nonfiction, Education, Philosophy

Synopsis

"Emerson's prose is his triumph, both as eloquence and as insight. After Shakespeare, it matches anything else in the language."-Harold BloomHere are Ralph Waldo Emerson's classic essays, including the exhortation to "Self-Reliance," the embattled realizations of "Circles" and "Experience," and the groundbreaking achievement of "Nature." Our most eloquent champion of individualism, Emerson acknowledges at the same time the countervailing pressures of society in American life. Even as he extols what he calls "the great and crescive self," he dramatizes and records its vicissitudes. Also gathered here are his wide-ranging discourses on history, art, politics, friendship, love, and much more.

About Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-nineteenth century. Although he began his career as a Unitarian minister, he gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism instead. Seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, he disseminated his thoughts through published essays and public lectures across the United States.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nick on May 06, 2015

Unfortunately, I barely pushed myself through this. I picked it up because it was in the "further reading" list in the back of "The Art of Stoic Joy," and of course Emerson is famous (and it's out of copyright==free). However, I really never clicked with it. I think there are two main reasons. First......more

Goodreads review by Michelle on January 20, 2012

I highlighted every other page.......more

Goodreads review by Drkshadow03 on August 05, 2021

In these series of essays, Emerson shares his thoughts on different topics united by the ideas that wisdom and truth are for the common man, the importance of sincerity, authenticity, and trusting our own judgements over social conventions, and that all of humanity and nature have some share in the......more

Goodreads review by Margarit (Mark) on September 02, 2025

Hard to read, full of archaic words. It’s interesting to pick a great mind like RWE, but I’m not sure that I will continue with any of his other books soon. I read the Essays (aka the First Series) because of a research for a book of mine so personally I’m satisfied, but I could not recommend it to t......more

Goodreads review by Michael on February 08, 2018

There are aspects of Emerson that don't do it for me. He believes in Nature, with a big capital N. He's sure he's found it, he's sure it's good, and he's sure that Nature is himself. Sometimes his belief in Nature makes him a thoroughgoing democrat. Everyone, after all, is Natural by definition. But......more