The annotated Emerson / edited by David Mikics ; with a foreword by Phillip Lopate.

Includes bibliographical references.

Foreword : the undisguised Emerson -- Chronology -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Nature (1836) -- The American scholar (1837) -- Letter to Martin van Buren, President of the United States, Concord, Mass., April 23, 1838 -- The Divinity school address (1838) -- Literary ethics (1838) -- From Essays, First series (1841): History; Self-reliance; Circles -- From Essays, Second series (1844): The poet; Experience; Politics; Nominalist and realist; New England reformers -- An address . . . on . . . the Anniversary of the Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies (1844) -- From Representative men (1850): Montaigne, or, The skeptic; Shakespeare, or, The poet -- From English traits (1856): First visit to England; Stonehenge; John Brown (1860) -- From The conduct of life (1860): Fate; Power; Illusions -- From Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852) -- Thoreau (1862) -- From Poems (1845): The sphinx; Uriel; The rhodora : on being asked, whence is the flower?; The snow-storm; Ode, inscribed to W.H. Channing; Merlin (I); Merlin (II); Bacchus; Concord hymn, sung at the completion of the battle monument, July 4, 1837 -- From May-day and other pieces (1867): Hafiz; The exile (from the Persian of Kermani); From Hafiz; [They say, through patience, chalk]; Song of Seid Nimetollah of Kuhistan.

This collection presents the letters, essays, and poems of the celebrated American writer and provides running commentaries to help shed light on particular passages and examine the writer's motives and style. A brilliant essayist and a master of the aphorism ("Our moods do not believe in each other"; "Money often costs too much"), Emerson has inspired countless writers. He challenged Americans to shut their ears against Europe's "courtly muses" and to forge a new, distinctly American cultural identity. But he remains one of America's least understood writers. And, by his own admission, he spawned neither school nor follower (he valued independent thought too much). Now, in this annotated selection of Emerson's writings, the author instructs the reader in a larger appreciation of Emerson's essential works and the remarkable thinker who produced them. Contains color illustrations as well as archival photographs. In his running commentaries on Emerson's essays, addresses, and poems, the author illuminates contexts, allusions, and language likely to cause difficulty to modern readers. He quotes extensively from Emerson's Journal to shed light on particular passages or lines and examines Emerson the essayist, poet, itinerant lecturer, and political activist. In the foreword the case is made for Emerson as a spectacular truth teller, a model of intellectual labor and anti-dogmatic sanity.