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Biographical

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803–82)

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-DC024-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-DC024-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved June 04, 2026, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/emerson-ralph-waldo-1803-82/v-1

List of works

  • Emerson, R.W. (1971–) The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. R. Spiller et al., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    (The new standard edition of Emerson’s writings.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1903–4) The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. E.W. Emerson, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 12 vols.

    (Former standard edition.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1836) Nature; repr. in Collected Works, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, vol. 1, 1–45.

    (Emerson’s first book, advocating an ‘original relation’ to the universe.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1837) ‘The American Scholar’; repr. in Collected Works, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, vol. 1, 52–70.

    (Calls for active souls rather than slavish scholars or ‘bookworms’.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1838) ‘The Divinity School Address’; repr. in Collected Works, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, vol. 1, 76–93.

    (Controversial graduation address at Harvard Divinity School, in which Emerson attacks the ‘Monster’ of institutional Christianity.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1841) Essays, First Series, in Collected Works, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, vol. 2.

    (Contains ‘Self-Reliance’, ‘Circles’, ‘The Over-Soul’ and ‘Intellect’.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1844) Essays, Second Series, in Collected Works, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971,vol. 3.

    (Contains ‘Experience’, ‘The Poet’ and ‘Nominalist and Realist’.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1850) Representative Men, in Collected Works, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1971, vol. 4.

    (Essays on Montaigne, Plato, Napoleon and others.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1860) The Conduct of Life, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960.

    (Contains ‘Fate’, ‘Power’ and ‘Illusions’.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1910–14) The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. E.W. Emerson and W.E. Forbes, Boston, MA, and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 10 vols.

    (Records of his reading and thinking from 1819 onwards, and the source for much in his essays.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1960–82) The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. W. Gillman et al., Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 16 vols.

    (The standard edition.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1961–72) The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. S.E. Whicher, R.E. Spiller and W.E. Williams, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 3 vols.

    (Includes Emerson’s first lectures of 1833; and a course on ‘The Present Age’ given in 1839–40.)

  • Emerson, R.W. (1964) The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. R.L. Rusk, New York: Columbia University Press, 6 vols.

    (Correspondence with family and friends, including Mary Moody Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, Henry James Sr, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.)

  • Emerson, R.W. and Carlyle, T. (1964) The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle, ed. J. Slater, New York: Columbia University Press.

    (Transatlantic correspondence of two great figures of Romanticism.)

References and further reading

  • Allen, G.W. (1981) Waldo Emerson, New York: Viking Press.

    (A fine, readable biography of Emerson.)

  • Cavell, S. (1981) ‘Thinking of Emerson’ and ‘An Emerson Mood’, in The Senses of Walden, An Expanded Edition, San Francisco, CA: North Point Press.

    (Sets out Emerson’s relation to Heidegger through discussion of his ‘epistemology of moods’.)

  • Cavell, S. (1988) In Quest of the Ordinary: Lines of Skepticism and Romanticism, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    (Traces lines of thought from Kant to Coleridge and Emerson, and offers an existentialist reading of ‘Self-Reliance’.)

  • Cavell, S. (1989) ‘Finding as Founding: Taking Steps in Emerson’s “Experience”’, in This New Yet Unapproachable America, Albuquerque, NM: Living Batch Press.

    (Argues that Emerson offers a proto-Heideggerian criticism of ‘thinking as clutching’, and a conception of foundation as ‘finding’ or ‘taking the open road’.)

  • Cavell, S. (1990) ‘Introduction’ and ‘Aversive Thinking’ in Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

    (Emerson’s thought in relation to issues discussed by Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Rawls.)

  • Ellison, J. (1984) Emerson’s Romantic Style, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    (A close reading of Emersonian texts stressing the ‘defensive and aggressive functions’ of his irony, repetitions and contradictions.)

  • Firkins, O.W. (1915) Ralph Waldo Emerson, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

    (A superbly written general account of Emerson’s life and writing.)

  • Goodman, R.B. (1990) American Philosophy and the Romantic Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    (Discusses Emerson’s relation to European Romanticism and American pragmatism.)

  • Kateb, G. (1995) Emerson and Self-Reliance, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

    (Emerson’s social and political philosophy.)

  • Packer, B.L. (1982) Emerson’s Fall, New York: Continuum.

    (The best contemporary literary treatment of Emerson’s essays.)

  • Poirier, R. (1992) Poetry and Pragmatism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    (‘Emersonian pragmatism’ in William James, Robert Frost, Gertrude Stein and Wallace Stevens.)

  • Richardson, R.D., Jr (1995) Emerson: The Mind on Fire, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    (An excellent, comprehensive biography of Emerson.)

  • Whicher, S. (1953) Freedom and Fate: An Inner Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    (A classic discussion of Emerson’s dialectic of freedom and fate.)

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Citing this article:
Goodman, Russell B.. Bibliography. Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803–82), 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-DC024-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/emerson-ralph-waldo-1803-82/v-1/bibliography/emerson-ralph-waldo-1803-82-bib.
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