Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II: 1822-1826

by Ralph Waldo Emerson, William H. Gilman, Alfred R. Ferguson, Merrell R. Davis

Overview

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the man and thinker, will be fully revealed for the first time in this new edition of his journals and notebooks. The old image of the ideal nineteenth-century gentleman, created by editorial omissions of his spontaneous thoughts, is replaced by the picture of Emerson as he really was. His frank and often bitter criticisms of men and society, his “nihilizing,” his anguish at the death of his first wife, his bleak struggles with depression and loneliness, his sardonic views of woman, his earthy humor, his ideas of the Negro, of religion, of God—these and other expressions of his private thought and feeling, formerly deleted or subdued, are here restored. Restored also is the full evidence needed for studies of his habits of composition, the development of his style, and the sources of his ideas.

The second volume prints the exact texts of nine journals and three notebooks. It reveals the shape of some of Emerson’s enduring interests, in embryo “essays” on the moral sense, moral beauty, taste, greatness and fame, friendship, compensation, and the unity of God and the universe. Restored from oblivion are suppressed passages on the Negro and revelations of acute melancholy and rebelliousness. These records of his developing thought are also the history of his early obscurity, when the fame he sought was still painfully remote.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674484511
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1961
Series:	Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson Series , #2
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

William H. Gilman is Professor of English at the University of Rochester.

Alfred R. Ferguson (1915–1974) was Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Merrell R. Davis was Professor of English at the University of Washington at the time of his death in 1961.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD TO VOLUME II

The Early Journals: 1822-1826

Chronology

Symbols and Abbreviations

PART ONE: THE TEXTS OF THE JOURNALS

Wide World 7

Wide World 8

Wide World 9

Wide World 10

Wide World 11

Walk to the Connecticut

WideWorld 12

Wide World XIII

No. XV

PART TWO: THE TEXTS OF THE MISCELLANEOUS NOTEBOOKS

No. XVIII[A]

No. XVI

No. II

Textual Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

In this volume we find Emerson’s evolving ideas on the moral sense, moral beauty, taste, greatness and fame, friendship and the unity of God and the universe… There need never be another edition.

The Washington Post & Times Herald

No American mind stands more influentially for creativity than Emerson’s. And these lifelong records, his journals particularly, provide unique glimpses into his growth. In these years, out of college, uncomfortably teaching school, young Waldo is becoming Emerson… His journalizing was literary practice, but above all, it was a heritage from the unsparing Puritan self-examination of the spirit for signs of grace or reprobation. And it is from that heritage…that the two most striking documents in this volume derive.

The Chicago Tribune

No American mind stands more influentially for creativity than Emerson's. And these lifelong records, his journals particularly, provide unique glimpses into his growth. In these years, out of college, uncomfortably teaching school, young Waldo is becoming Emerson...His journalizing was literary practice, but above all, it was a heritage from the unsparing Puritan self-examination of the spirit for signs of grace or reprobation. And it is from that heritage...that the two most striking documents in this volume derive.

Chicago Tribune

In this volume we find Emerson's evolving ideas on the moral sense, moral beauty, taste, greatness and fame, friendship and the unity of God and the universe...There need never be another edition.

Washington Post & Times Herald