Essays First Series

"Emerson's prose is his triumph, both as eloquence and as insight. After Shakespeare, it matches anything else in the language."

-Harold Bloom

Here are Ralph Waldo Emerson's classic essays, including the exhortation to "Self-Reliance," the embattled realizations of "Circles" and "Experience," and the groundbreaking achievement of "Nature." Our most eloquent champion of individualism, Emerson acknowledges at the same time the countervailing pressures of society in American life. Even as he ext...