Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays don't make for an easy read, but Emerson, luckily for us, decided not to accept the easy, run of the mill explanation of the life he found around him. It takes discipline and effort to tackle Emerson's work, and I have to say that it was well worth it for me. This small paperback collection has got to be one of the best places to start for those of you interested in having a go at one of THE Trascendentalist writers. This collecion brings together in a very inexpensive buy most of his greatest prose. With this, you get "Nature," "The American Scholar," "Man the Reformer," "History," "Self-Reliance," "The Over-Soul," "The Trascendentalist," "The Poet," "Experience," and more. If there is one place to start reading Emerson, than this might as well be among the top choices. Not only is it inexpensive, but it's small, light, and easy to take around. It also includes a great introduction (by Larzer Ziff) to Emerson the man and the world in which he wrote. I highly recommend it.

This book asks the reader to think quite a bit. When I initially read the collection, I was turned off by the monotony of the diction and the drab subject matter. However, I found that Emerson asks his reader to think about his own thoughts and gain insight into the ideas he presents. This collection is an impeccable work of Transcendentalism and can be related to modern life as well. If you choose to read this book in the historical sense, you are sure to gain information about the mindset of the time in which it was written. Emerson's view on Man, Society, Nature, and the world in general is certain to provide you with hours upon hours of analyzation, introspection and plain old satisfaction. I recommend this collection essays enthusiastically.

For anyone who enjoys beautiful prose with intellectually stimulating ideas and thoughts--this book is a "MUST-HAVE" for your library collection! These classic and quotable essays are enlighting and refreshing! If you (like I do) reject the Transcendentalist doctrine and theology, you may find yourself dismissing a couple of the essays as too tasking ideologically as they are at times on the fringe of transcendental ideology. Emerson's use of the English language, however, is a breath of fresh air in this era where the common vernacular is characterized by the grotesque abuses of ebonics, profanity, and laziness. It would be incredibly wonderful if all Americans would return to the most eloquent and beautiful use of our language as Emerson does.

This book certainly has moments of great insight. Emerson's passion is quite clear and often well-articulated. But this is a very lengthy book, and many of the essays no longer have as much to offer as they perhaps once did. There are several that are invaluable, of course, but many of them have simply become too obtuse and arcane to be really relevant anymore. I read the book all the way through, but my recommendation would be that people purchase it simply for reference, and maybe to read the more famous essays now and again. In the end, many of the essays have disturbing undercurrents of racism or anti-democratic sentiment and Emerson's inability to see nature as a dark force, as it can sometimes be, sinks large portions of the book. We must bear in mind that Emerson was writing in a different time and that his comments that are now unacceptable were not always that way. Clearly this book is historically important, and it is obviously a worthwhile one to have sitting on the shelf to quote or occasionally reference, but it is certainly not the bulletproof guide to living that many have made it out to be.

This book is the complete essays and lectures of ralph waldo emerson. It contains everything you could want from emerson, save his journals. His writing is beauty in it's truest form. What he speaks is what you have forever felt to be true. When he warns against self-distrust in self-reliance you feel that he is not only speaking to you, but speaking for you. Reading this book is not only seeing what he has written, but is a demonstration of what he has written. When he writes in "self-reliance" of the reoccuring situation where people have to take their truth from another, the medium becomes the message. Emerson's work as presented in this volume has been under rated by philisophical circles for years. Here you will see that not only is he a great essayist, but that (while unconventional)he is a great philosopher.

Casual readers should not be put off by the academic or esoteric treatment suggested by the title of this book. For _My Friend, My Friend_ serves as a good overall biography of both Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson and describes in understandable terms the transcendental movement as well. The added focus is what each man thought of friendship in general and how it pertained to his relationship with the other. Newbies to the works and lives of these two men would do well to start their education with this volume. Ardent fans of either writer will find they disagree with some of the author's suppositions, though, especially in the discussion of how the men's real lives differed with the public personas they each created. Even so, it's an engaging read.

Harmon Smith has provided us with an engaging story of a friendship between two of America's leading thinkers and writers of the 19th century--Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Friendship was central to the Transcendental Movement, a platonic ideal that never quite materialized, so it is here as Smith puts their lives under the microscope. He captures their humanity in a way no other biographers have, because he is able to separate the mythic "Henry David Thoreau" from the human. The cautions come when Smith turns away from the microscope to record a narrative that often includes his own projections into the minds and hearts of his subjects. Worst of all is his use of the old Oedipal complex of Freud projected onto Henry and his mother Cynthia. There is little to no substantiation for such a supposition, and so one must realize where the book fails to use a wise discretion. It is, nevertheless, a wise and wonderful portrait of a friendship that lasted three decades.

Why are we so interested in the gory details of private lives? Does it really matter? In this case, I would say not at all. Why bother with such questions when you could be reading the juicy details of Thoreau and Emerson's sometimes rocky friendship? The warp and weft of their relationship formed such an intricate pattern over the years that one cannot help but be fascinated.

I found myself, overall, agreeing with one of the reviewers when he stated specifically that "Walden" is not a book to be read purely for enjoyment, it is not a thrilling read or even a very deep one in general but then one must remember in which time we live and the style used by Thoreau is one of the mid 19th Century which was prone to the type of writing he uses. Anyone who has read other novels of the time or rather written in that period will find similar styles eg James Fenimoore Cooper, Charles Dickens etc. In addition this is not a novel but rather a retelling of experiences of one man in his own adventure as he would put it.

That is not to say that Thoreau does not illuminate or at times give remarkable insights especially when it came to some of the people he met who had fascinating ways of life eg the woodcutter. The book varies from downright mundane and tedious to being very insightful and beautiful. Its amazing how someone can do this as he writes, verging from one extreme to the other. But then it was written from journal notes as he lived his life in the woods over two years experience and during that time a person changes as he adapts to his new way of life. At first its very exciting and new, any new experience is always full of a kind of life shock whether it be painful or joyful, the thinking mind, the mind absorbed in everyday "safe" tasks which define the "normal" life are absent in this new environment which requires new creative energies to survive, after a while this way of life becomes the accepted one and starts to be drained of the vitality it possessed at the beginning as one is fully acclimatised to it and it becomes the norm, after this stage comes the usual safety associated with the walls created to keep life ordinary rather than really being alive. This is hard to do when living in the woods by yourself where you need constant awareness to survive unless its a little too close to civilisation which provides the safety net which Thoreau always had available to him. But still during the period where he was very much alive and aware, life is lived without need for too much unnecessary thought, and this is the place from where insights and great creativity burst forth.

If one wants to know what it is like to be really truly alive in the moment and you are afraid to try it yourself and would rather read about it then try the books "Abstract Wild" by Jack Turner or "Grizzly Years" by Peacock. Am I wrong to criticise Thoreau so much ? Yes and no, eg Yes:see the comments by John Ralston Saul on exactly this aspect of Thoreau's writing, No: look at your own life or mine for example, in each case we do not escape this ordinary life we ourselves create. For the purely lived life expressed in poetry look at the poems by Basho, no clearer or more beautiful expression of life has yet been written. I say written not lived, lived can't be written down in full only a brief glimpse or shadow of it is possible even with Basho.

As regards what is said it often betrays Thoreau's astonishingly well read mind, quotes from the Baghvad Gita or other Hindu texts surprise because in Throeau's day very few people would ever have bothered to read the Indian works, the average American thought his own life and European works to be far superior. Thoreau often quotes Latin, often without reference, and the notes at the end of the book are very helpful. Thoreau's experience becomes the one Americans want to live at least without being in too much danger as he would have been in the true wild still available at that time in the lives of say the trappers or mountain men of the Rockies or any native American. As such it is an in between way of living wild.

So Thoreau's work is definitely worth reading even for only the historical value or the literature it represents. It stands by itself.

This book screams simplicity!

In this book, Henry David Thoreau takes an extended look beyond human nature and human habit. He brings forth a new and exciting view point on life and teaches how to live in happiness without the confusion of mechanical materials. I had to read this book for a 9th grade Language Arts assignment, and I had never heard of Walden or Thoreau before this project was assigned. When I completed this book, I felt very refreshed. It encouraged me to take a second look at my own life, and simply discard of the things which were causing complications or confusion. This book stretched past the limits and capacity of my mind as a 9th grade student. It forced me to think. Judging by the majority of my peers, I am convinced that anything that would force them to THINK harder, deserves 5 shining stars.

This timeless classic from one of the great thinkers of the 19th century American transcedentalist school appeals to all idealists. This would include idealists from both the left and the right. Envronmentalists are attracted by the themes of living in harmony with nature. For example, Thoreau observes all around him in his two year two month stay in his simple house in the woods. He describes in great detail watching certain insects glide along the pond and the ripples made when they do so. He provides an engrossing description of two ant colonies, one black, the other red, at war with each other and gives a lurid, blow by blow account of the battle. Envrionmentalist also will be drawn toward his declarations against waste and using more than is necassary.

Leftists from an earlier generation, "hippies" for want of a better characterization, are drawn towards Thoreau's rejection of the material. At Walden Pond, Thoreau eschewed unnecessary comforts and lived for what may be more truly important; a life in which we get to know the world around us. He was able to sit for hours, but this was not a waste of time because he was thinking and observing. He sought higher values.

Idealists from the right are also attracted by Thoreau's observations since he was self reliant and lived off of his own labors without thinking that anyone else owed him a living. He may have rejected the material but, in so doing, he fended for himself and lived off of his hard work and ingenuity. Unfortunately, there are many today who cannot possibly appreciate this great book because they are more concerned with materialism, an easy life and pop culture. I hope that these young people will ultimately experience what Thoreau early in the first chapter calls the greatest miracle: "to look through each other's eyes for an instant." I hope that these young readers will look through this great thinker's eyes and truly try to understand what he has seen and experienced.

I love Emerson. For my money, he's one of the most insightful thinkers and beautiful stylists this country has produced. He deserves better than he's received from "professional" philosophers who tend to dismiss him as "just" a person of letters (as if that were a shameful thing to be!).

But this collection of Emersonia is seriously flawed. It prints the essays in Emerson's first collection, but only two from his second. It omits some of his best poems (including "The Sphinx," which Emerson himself so valued that he always had it printed at the very beginning of all the books of poems he published during his lifetime), as well as all of the later essays. In their place, the editors choose to print Emerson's "English Traits," a pleasant enough travel book but rather fluffy compared to the rest of his works. As the editors admit in their Introduction (itself a rather disappointing effort), they tend to feel uncomfortable with Emerson's work on mysticism, and so they decided to leave out of their anthology huge chunks of it. But since Emerson is first and foremost a mystical writer, this is to seriously misrepresent him.

In short, read Emerson--but find a better one-volume collection of his work than this one.

Every Emerson volume is 'a good read'. Unlike some other readers, I love English Traits, maybe because I am English. Emerson is a joy, everyone should read him, at least once.

Emerson's writings are eaily and clearly displayed in this wonderful publication. My thirst for poetry was easily quenched with his powerful and meaningful words. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to read thoughtful and discriptive literature.

This book is too nice.it presents the lifestyle of Emerson,the great philosopher in a very analytical way.

For thirty years I have coveted a battered copy of Bliss Perry's abbreviated edition of Emerson's Journals which my father carried in his sea bag during World War II. I first read this edition at age fifteen, and now most recently at age forty-four and continue to find much to startle and enlighten.

As a literary figure, Emerson towers over every other American writer. Not just through his own Essays and poetry is the arm of his influence so large, but chiefly through his influence on "disciples" like Thoreau, Whitman and a hundred others. His journals are the mother lode of this rich influence.

There are few greater books to carry in our own sea bags.

From the review, everyone seems to enjoy this piece of work

This volume is an excellent compendium of Emerson's work. It contains material not available in the Library of America editions. Beware of the critical essays, though, particularly the contemporary ones. It's hard to tell from Cornel West's essay whether or not he's actually read Emerson, but if he has, he didn't like him much. So why write an essay appraising Emerson? It's the silly, empty-headed kind of academic noodling that makes academia irrelevant to modern life.

This begs the larger question: Why would anyone read ABOUT Emerson, when they could READ Emerson? Ignore the critics, commentators and wannabe's. READ EMERSON.

I like this book and the way the author dealt with the "vulnerable" subject on Emerson and Pragmatism. It is strongly persuasive and compact. And the most superb part of the book is the critical geneology the author delienates from Emerson to Stein, though he leaves out C. S. Pierce, who I think is one of the undeveloped and unappreciated thinker among scholars.

This book somewhat gives a different view of what Emerson was like away from being the literature giant that he is...if that sounds interesting to you then you should get this book.