Transcendentalism: Essential Essays of Emerson & Thoreau

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossaryand notes to help the modern reader appreciate details that may otherwisebe confusing or overlooked.Funny, fascinating, irritating, andimpossible to ignore, the Transcendentalists demand that readerslook inward, heed their own consciences, and, above all, act ontheir own convictions. The most famous of this set, Ralph WaldoEmerson and Henry David Thoreau, are known today as pioneersof the first uniquely American literary movement. Celebrating thewonders of nature and the landscapes of the mind with equalawe, Emerson and Thoreau have an appeal that transcends timeand place.Beginning with essays from Emerson's groundbreaking 1841Self-Reliance-a quintessential Transcendentalist read-thisanthology also contains the Concord Bard's Friendship. Puttingtheory into practice, Emerson's friend and protégé Thoreau buildsfoundations under Emerson's castles in the air; by deliveringaccounts of his own real-life efforts to live authentically in Walden andCivil Disobedience.