Collects Emerson's well-known speeches, essays, and poetry that expressed the scholar's philosophy in transcendentalism and defined the American identity.
With their call for "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!," for self-honesty, and for harmony with nature, the writings of Henry David Thoreau are perhaps the most influential philosophical works in all American literature. The Selections in this volume represent Thoreau at his best. Included in their entirety are Walden, his indisputable masterpiece, and his two great arguments for nonconformity, "Civil Disobedience" and "Life Without Principle." A lifetime of brilliant observation of nature–and of himself–is recorded in selections from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Cape Cod, The Maine Woods, and the Journal.
From one of the greatest figures of 19th-century America... This new edition offers a broad view of the author's finest work, featuring his critical essays, poems, and letters, plus a considerable amount of material from the Journals, including an entry discovered in 1964 in the Library of Congress.