Emerson in His Journals - Softcover

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674248627 ISBN 13: 9780674248625

Publisher: Belknap Press, 1984

Synopsis

This long-awaited volume offers the general reader the heart of Emerson’s journals, that extraordinary series of diaries and notebooks in which he poured out his thoughts for more than fifty years, beginning with the “luckless ragamuffin ideas” of his college days.

Emerson as revealed in his journals is more spontaneous, more complex, more human and appealing than he appears in the published works. This man is the seeker rather than the sage; he records the turmoil, struggle, and questioning that preceded the serene and confident affirmations of the essays. He is honest, earthy, tough-minded, self-critical (“I am a lover of indolence, & of the belly”), warm in his enthusiasms, a witty and sharp observer of people and events. Everything is grist for his mill: personal experiences, his omnivorous reading, ruminations on matters large and small, his doubts and perplexities, public issues and local gossip. There are abrupt shifts in subject and tone, reflecting the variousness of his moods and the restless energy of his mind.

Drawing from Harvard’s sixteen-volume scholarly edition of the journals―but omitting the textual apparatus that makes it hard to read―Joel Porte presents a sympathetic selection that brings us close to Emerson the man.

About this title

From the Back Cover

This long-awaited volume offers the general reader the heart of Emerson's journals, that extraordinary series of diaries and notebooks in which he poured out his thoughts for more than fifty years.

Review

“It’s cause for celebration that a one-volume, thoroughly readable selection from this American classic, keenly alive to modern taste, makes its appearance. It is a volume that every serious reader or lover of American literature will want... Emerson in His Journals, a book to own and cherish, is the best of companions.”―Reid Beddow, Washington Post Book World

“[The editor] has performed an invaluable service by condensing the Harvard edition of Emerson’s journals into a single volume... The man who appears in these pages is not just a sunny optimist, living serenely in rustic Concord, Mass. This Emerson also dwells in an age of cholera, slavery, and Civil War. Beyond his back pasture stands the town poor-house, where a madwoman screams night and day...his daily entries were wholly American: raw and unrefined, thoughts undulating with his own pace of action.”―William Howarth, Philadelphia Inquirer

“For generations of readers [this] book will stand for ‘Emerson in his journals.’”―Richard Poirier, New York Times Book Review

“The title of this book is exactly right, for Emerson revealed himself more spontaneously and unguardedly in his Journals than anywhere else. Joel Porte has done a superb job of selecting out of three million words the passages which are most valuable either as autobiography or as literary expression. [This book] will contribute mightily to the rediscovery of Emerson now taking place a century after his death.”―Gay Wilson Allen

About this edition

• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0674248627
• ISBN 13: 9780674248625
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 608