Essays: First Series

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essays: First Series (1841) collects twelve central statements of American Transcendentalism, among them 'Self-Reliance,' 'Compensation,' and 'The Over-Soul.' In an aphoristic, prophetic style, Emerson urges the reader to trust the divinity within, to find in nature and the individual soul a direct relation to the universe, and to live with originality and moral independence. They became a founding text of American intellectual self-reliance.

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Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII

Essays: First Series

Contents