The Heart of Emerson's Journals
Description:... "Mr. Bliss Perry has performed his editorial task with great skill and discrimination, and it is now possible to read in a convenient form the intellectual log book of the Concord philosopher, to obtain an informal, but truer picture of Emersonian thought than in the 'Essays.'"--Independent.
From about 1820, when he was 17, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) kept a personal journal. Over the next 55 years, he continued to make entries, recording a wide range of thoughts and impressions about books and authors, religions, his contemporaries, the state of the nation and the world, and a host of other topics. The result was ten volumes of pure Emerson -- open and informal, revealing the private man behind the formidable thinker, poet, and leader of the New England Transcendentalists.
For this volume, Professor Bliss Perry selected, with admirable judgment and a remarkable eye for the telling passage, the best of the journals, offering not only a splendid, revealing record of Emerson's personal beliefs but also a social and historical record of his age. He has "succeeded in retaining in a single volume both only the best separate passages which their crystalline completeness of construction makes a comparatively simple matter, but, what is more difficult, the unspoiled portrait of Emerson himself." -- Outlook.
Any student, scholar, or admirer of Emerson will want to have this concise, well-chosen compilation of his intimate, innermost musings and meditations. It's a rich opportunity to discover a fascinating, lesser-known dimension of the man known to the public as the Sage of Concord.
Show description