Penguin Classics: The Portable Emerson

I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man.'

Described by Harold Bloom as 'the most influential writer of the nineteenth century,' Ralph Waldo Emerson is widely considered the founder of American's intellectual tradition. Friend and mentor to literary giants including Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman, Emerson did more than perhaps any other thinker to shape and define the American mind through his diverse body of work, while his central text, Nature, singlehandedly engendered an entire spiritual and intellectual movement in transcendentalism.

This comprehensive new edition presents the core of Emerson's writings, including Nature and The American Scholar, along with revelatory journal entries, letters, poetry, and a sermon. Editor Jeffrey S. Cramer's update to his classic collection offers the staggering breadth of Emerson's ideas while introducing a stirringly human portrait of the man in all his infinitude.