Letters and Social Aims (Volume VIII) (Ralph Waldo Emerson) - Hardcover

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674035607 ISBN 13: 9780674035607

Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2010

Synopsis

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 Ralph Waldo 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. Bosco
Notes and Parallel Passages by Glen M. Johnson
Text Established and Textual Introduction and Apparatus by Joel Myerson

About this title

About the Author

Ronald A. Bosco, Distinguished Professor of English and American Literature, State University of New York at Albany, is General Editor of the Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

About this edition

• Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0674035607
• ISBN 13: 9780674035607
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 670
• Editor: Johnson Glen M., Myerson Joel