Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume I: Nature, Addresses, and Lectures

Edited by Robert E. Spiller and Alfred R. Ferguson

Hardcover

ISBN 9780674139701

Publication date: 01/01/1971

In 1849 Ralph Waldo Emerson collected in one volume all of his published work he thought worthy of preservation that had not been contained in the two series of Essays (1841, 1844) and the Poems (1847). Included were the essay Nature (1836); four orations, “The American Scholar,” “The Divinity School Address,” and two others; and five lectures which had appeared in The Dial.

As the first volume of a projected new Collected Works, this edition of Nature, Addresses, and Lectures now provides for the first time a definitive text based on collation of all editions in which Emerson might have had a hand, together with a wholly new introduction and extensive notes. The recently published Journals and Lectures from this period help bring to this volume a fresh perspective on the first and formative stage of Emerson’s career as a public figure and man of letters.

Introduction and Notes by Robert E. Spiller; Text Established by Alfred R. Ferguson

Praise

The editorial information does not dwarf the work being edited, or make the book unwieldy. This volume of the new Works will serve all needs, from those of the mythical 'general reader' to the most serious Emerson scholar.

—American Literature
This, the first volume in what will unquestionably be the definitive edition of Emerson's collected works, includes such major essays as 'Nature,' 'The American Scholar,' and 'The Divinity School Address'…Spiller and Ferguson have produced a 'critical' and unmodernized text as close to Emerson's original intent as modern bibliographical research can come.

—Library Journal
This volume presents the most definitive, critical, and unmodernized text of Emerson's major published writings from the years 1836-42.

—Choice