Essays, First Series
'Essays, First Series' Summary
“I do not wish to treat friendships daintily but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass beads or frost-work but the solidest thing we know....” is how Ralph Waldo Emerson saw the ties of friendship in one of his essays titled Friendship, more than a hundred years ago.
This and other interesting essays are included in Essays First Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the distinguished American philosopher and writer. Apart from writing, he was also a very gifted and popular public speaker who toured the length and breadth of the country sharing his ideas with the larger public. A distinguishing feature of Emerson's work in both lectures and writings was that he initially focused on religious and spiritual matters like many of his contemporaries, but in time, he moved away from such a narrow range and deepened and broadened the nature of his ideas. His friends included Thoreau, Oliver Wendell Holmes and through his works, he extended his influence to many thinkers, including those as widely different as Nietzsche and William James (who was also his godson.)
His ideas were considered quite innovative and radical for the time. He was a staunch believer in individual freedom and equality of the races. As a strong supporter of abolitionism, he believed that slavery was a prime example of human injustice. Known as the “Concord Sage” Emerson's thoughts influenced the politics and thinking of the age.
His essays were almost all written for the lecture format initially and their almost conversational style makes them very readable. These essays cover a range of subjects including Prudence, Self-Reliance, Heroism, Art, Spiritual Laws, History and a host of other interesting topics.
Today the art of essay-writing and reading has almost disappeared and Essays First Series written by a master of the form can indeed provide hours of thought-provoking and deeply philosophical reading.
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
EnglishPublished In
1841Author
Ralph Waldo Emerson
United States
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist and poet who led the transcendentalist movem...
More on Ralph Waldo EmersonDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books by Charles William Eliot
Charles W. Eliot, 21st President of Harvard University, edited this volume of prefaces ... authored by a Who's Who of World Literature: Bacon, Calvin,...
Further Foolishness by Stephen Leacock
"Professor Leacock has made more people laugh with the written word than any other living author. One may say he is one of the greatest jesters, the g...
Studies in Stagecraft by Clayton Hamilton
A companion piece to Hamilton's earlier work, The Theory of the Theatre. Where that volume dealt with the criticism of dramatic art in general, this v...
Hidden Treasures by Harry A. Lewis
"Some succeed while others fail. This is a recognized fact; yet history tells us that seven-tenths of our most successful men began life poor." A sele...
Utopia of Usurers by Gilbert K. Chesterton
“Now I have said again and again that we must hit Capitalism, and hit it hard, for the plain and definite reason that it is growing stronger. Most of...
Narratives of Colored Americans by Abigail Mott
Abigail Mott was a Quaker and abolitionist from New York who, along with fellow Quaker M. S. Wood, has compiled a provocative collection of stories of...
Optimism, An Essay by Helen Keller
It is a testament to Keller's unwavering belief in the power of positive thinking and the human spirit. In this insightful essay, Keller explores the...
It's a Good Old World by Bruce Barton
In this collection of essays, Bruce Barton, considered to be among the most influential advertising men of the 20th century, uses history, religion an...
G.K. Chesterton in The Bibliophile Magazine by Gilbert K. Chesterton
Two essays/articles by G.K. Chesterton, published in 'The Bibliophile' magazine in 1908.
Life's Enthusiasms by David Starr Jordan
That is poetry in which truth is expressed in the fewest possible words, in words which are inevitable, in words which could not be changed without we...
Reviews for Essays, First Series
No reviews posted or approved, yet...