Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
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 and Times Herald
Review
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
About the Author
William H. Gilmanis professor of English at the <>University of Rochester.Alfred R. Fergusonwas, until his death, Professor of English at the <>University of Massachusetts, Boston.Merrell R. Daviswas professor of English at the <>University of Washingtonat 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