Essays

Essays is a selected prose volume by Ralph Waldo Emerson, first published in this form in 1907 and edited by Edna H. L. Turpin. It presents eleven texts across Emerson's career.

“The American Scholar” calls for intellectual independence from inherited European models, while “Self-Reliance” urges trust in individual perception. “Compensation” develops a moral balance within action, bringing freedom together with consequence.

“Friendship,” “Heroism,” “Manners,” and “Gifts” examine conduct between individuals; “Nature,” “Prudence,” and “Circles” move between practical judgment and expanding thought. The selection repeatedly tests character against social conformity.

“Shakespeare; or, the Poet” places creative genius within Emerson's account of representative figures. Turpin's introduction, chronology, notes, and classroom design frame writings first delivered or published at different dates, making an anthology rather than one series.

"Mr. President and Gentlemen,

I greet you on the recommencement of our literary year. Our anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do not meet for games of strength or skill, for the recitation of histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for parliaments of love and poesy, like the Troubadours; nor for the advancement of science, like our co-temporaries in the British and European capitals."

The catalog year 1844 refers to Emerson's Essays: Second Series; this download is Turpin's wider 1907 selection for Merrill's English Texts.