Sold by William Reese Company, New York, NY, U.S.A.
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AbeBooks Seller since July 13, 2006
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
First edition, first printing, "Writings" binding (Myerson's "Binding B") of Ralph Waldo Emerson's The Conduct of Life, published in 1860 by Ticknor and Fields of Boston, consisting of nine essays "Fate," "Power," "Wealth," "Culture," "Behavior," "Worship," "Considerations by the Way," "Beauty," and "Illusions" based on lectures first delivered in the winter of 1850 51. In both the lectures and the publication that resulted, Emerson seeks to answer the "practical question of the conduct of life," namely, "How shall I live?" A key figure in the Transcendentalist movement, Emerson's reputation as a man of letters and popular lecturer preceded him. By the 1850s, the "Sage of Concord" was a recognized figure in both the United States and England. The decade that opened in 1850 with both the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act as well as the tragic death of his friend and fellow Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller saw Emerson's growing involvement in both the abolitionist and women's rights movements. In the essays that comprise his Conduct of Life, Emerson "tries tobalance his belief in the importance of individual freedom," as expressed in such earlier works as Nature (1836), "The American Scholar" (1837), and the "Divinity School Address" (1838), "with a recognition of there being immutable natural laws that restrict humanity in its actions" (ANB). Shortly after the book's publication, Thomas Carlyle wrote to Emerson, informing him that he reckoned it "the best of all your Books," noting that "I never read from you before such lightning-gleams of meanings as are to be found here." One of the hundred most significant books published by Ticknor and Fields, as identified by Pye. The present copy conforms to the "First Printing, Variant A" of the BAL and "Sequence 1" of Myerson, including advertisements on p.[iv], with The Conduct of Life described as in seven textual divisions and as "Nearly Ready," priced $1.00 as well as the sixteen-page catalogue of publisher's advertisements, dated December 1860, inserted at rear. A first edition, first printing of one of Emerson's most significant later works. BAL 5231. MYERSON A26.1.a. PYE, TICKNOR & FIELDS 100, 65.ANB 7, p.491. Thomas Carlyle to Ralph Waldo Emerson, January 29, 1861, in The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle, ed. Joseph Slater (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1964), pp.533-34. Original publisher's brown cloth, boards stamped in blind, spine gilt. Binding rubbed, some light stains to front board, extremities a touch worn with some loss to cloth at corners and fraying to head and foot of spine, front joint starting. Light dampstaining along gutter to about first half of text, more dampstaining to last dozen or so leaves of text. Bookplate of George Clinton Fairchild Williams to front pastedown. About very good.
Seller Inventory # 68721
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