Transcendentalism: Essential Essays of Emerson & Thoreau

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and notes to help the modern reader appreciate details that may otherwise be confusing or overlooked. Funny, fascinating, irritating, and impossible to ignore, the Transcendentalists demand that readers look inward, heed their own consciences, and, above all, act on their own convictions. The most famous of this set, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, are known today as pioneers of the first uniquely American literary movement. Celebrating the wonders of nature and the landscapes of the mind with equal awe, Emerson and Thoreau have an appeal that transcends time and place. Beginning with essays from Emerson's groundbreaking 1841 Self-Reliance-a quintessential Transcendentalist read-this anthology also contains the Concord Bard's Friendship. Putting theory into practice, Emerson's friend and protégé Thoreau builds foundations under Emerson's castles in the air; by delivering accounts of his own real-life efforts to live authentically in Walden and Civil Disobedience.