The Oxford Handbook of Ralph Waldo Emerson is the most expansive collection of critical essays on Emerson to date, a survey that approaches Emerson from the vantages of climate change, racial justice, print culture, the digital humanities, the new religious studies, hemispheric American Studies, health humanities, and affect theory among other critical perspectives. Curated between a forward by editor Christopher Hanlon--who makes the case for a capacious and contemporary Emerson--and Cornel West--the activist-scholar whose influential work on Emerson merges with a career of advocacy for economic and racial justice?this collection assesses the history and state of Emerson scholarship while charting pathways for new work on this most essential American writer. Comprised of new works by leading figures in nineteenth-century Americanist literary studies, the volume suggests directions into underexamined facets of Emerson's writing, life, and reputation. From Emerson's engagements with energy infrastructure and the processes of extraction that undergirded the locomotives he rode and the energy economies he sometimes extolled; to the vicissitudes of age he experienced alongside the romantic tropes of youthful vigour he both re-circulated and re-tooled; to Emerson's poetry, both in its philosophical formulations and in its reflections of the material circumstances of nineteenth-century print culture; to Emerson's resonance beyond the United States, elsewhere in the western hemisphere; to the Black press and its refractions of Emersonian transcendentalism in the midst of ante- and post-bellum justice struggles; to the legacies of Emerson to be found in the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Rachel Carson, and in the versions of ?Emerson? to be found in children's literature; to his often-fraught and often-fruitful engagements with reform movements of various sorts; to the prospects for digital processes of re-reading Emerson and his contemporaries' styles of textual production and engagement, The Oxford Handbook of Ralph Waldo Emerson is a necessary resource for students, scholars, and general readers committed to the study of Emerson, transcendentalism, and current critical approaches to United States literature.

Letters and Social Aims, published in 1875, contains essays originally published early in the 1840s as well as those that were the product of a collaborative effort among Emerson, his daughter Ellen Tucker Emerson, his son Edward Waldo Emerson, and his literary executor James Eliot Cabot. The volume takes up the topics of Poetry and Imagination, Social Aims, Eloquence, Resources, The Comic, Quotation and Originality, Progress of Culture, Persian Poetry, Inspiration, Greatness, and, appropriately for Emerson's last published book, Immortality. The historical introduction demonstrates for the first time the decline in Emerson's creative powers after 1865; the strain caused by the preparation of a poetry anthology and delivery of lectures at Harvard during this time; the devastating effect of a house fire in 1872; and how the Emerson children and Cabot worked together to enable Emerson to complete the book. The textual introduction traces this collaborative process in detail and also provides new information about the genesis of the volume as a response to a proposed unauthorized British edition of Emerson's works. Historical Introduction by Ronald A. BoscoNotes and Parallel Passages by Glen M. JohnsonText Established and Textual Introduction and Apparatus by Joel Myerson

This edition includes: Introduction: Ralph Waldo Emerson Books: The Conduct of Life: Fate Power Wealth Culture Behavior Worship Considerations by the Way Beauty Illusions Essays-First Series: History Self-Reliance Compensation Spiritual Laws Love Friendship Prudence Heroism The Over-Soul Circles Intellect Art Essays-Second Series: The Poet Experience Character Manners Gifts Nature Politics Nominalist and Realist New England Reformers Nature: Commodity Beauty Language Discipline Idealism Spirit Prospects Representative Men: Plato Emanuel Swedenborg Michel de Montaigne William Shakespeare Napoleon Johann Wolfgang von Goethe English Traits: First Visit to England Voyage to England Land Race Ability Manners Truth Character Cockayne Wealth Aristocracy Universities Religion Literature The Times Stonehenge Personal Result Speech at Manchester Society and Solitude: Civilization Art Eloquence Domestic Life Farming Works and Days Books Clubs Courage Success Old Age Letters and Social Aims: Poetry and Imagination Social Aims Eloquence Resources The Comic Quotation and Originality Progress of Culture Persian Poetry Inspiration Greatness Immortality Addresses and Lectures: The American Scholar An Address in Divinity College Literary Ethics The Method of Nature Man the Reformer Lecture on The Times The Conservative The Transcendentalist The Young American Letter to President Van Buren The Man of Letters The Celebration of Intellect... Other Essays: The Lord's Supper Thoughts on Modern Literature Walter Savage Landor The Senses and the Soul Transcendentalism Prayers Fourierism and the Socialists Chardon Street and Bible Conventions Agriculture of Massachusetts Harvard University English Reformers Europe and European Books The Tragic Past and Present Perpetual Forces Demonology The Preacher Milton Thoreau Michael Angelo Plutarch Ezra Ripley Mary Moody Emerson Samuel Hoar Carlyle George L. Stearns Saadi American Civilization The Fortune of the Republic The Sovereignty of Ethics The Natural History of Intellect...

"Published here for the first time are seven of Emerson's topical notebooks, which served as a source for his lectures, essays, and books of the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s. Concerned primarily with nature, art, philosophy, American culture, and his contemporaries, the notebooks presented in this first of a three-volume editions afford fascinating insight into Emerson's creative practices. They will offer new perspectives for future readings of his completed works. The editors provide faithful transcriptions of the notebooks using the highest standards of textual practice. Their detailed annotations describe and comment on erased or revised passages, translate Greek and Latin quotations, and identify books and articles referred to in the texts of the notebooks. References to similar passages in Emerson's journals, lectures, and published works are also provided in the annotations. Publication of these notebooks will inable scholars to trace ideas that have gone unnoticed previously. The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 1, offers valuable insight into the art and philosophy of one of America's foremost thinkers. These volumes will be an important addition to any personal or institutional library of nine-teenth-century American literature."--Publishers website.