The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a critical edition that draws on the vast body of Emerson scholarship of the last half-century, enrich our understanding and appreciation of his interdisciplinary subjects. The edition includes all of Emerson’s major essays published during his lifetime as well as unpublished selections from 1838 and 1841, together with introductions by Alfred Kazin and Joseph Slater, who first edited and continue to edit this series. The fifth volume concludes with an important selection from “Essays on Poetry and Authors” (1847). All three editions include an appendix containing the texts of all changes made by Emerson after their initial publication in magazines, including slight alterations to double negatives and parentheses; complete bibliographical footnotes are provided for each new author or piece cited.