Transcendentalism

Joel Myerson is Carolina Distinguished Professor of American Literature at the University of South Carolina. He is the editor of A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson (Oxford, 1999).

This magnificent edition of the writings of the Transcendentalists introduces a consequential strain of American thinking to new readers. The works have been sensibly selected, and because the original spelling and punctuation have been preserved, the dazzling originality of thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Peabody, and Margaret Fuller rises from the pages with the force and agility of a rousing sermon....Myerson deftly thumbnails each author's argument, and in an inspired introduction, reminds us that the seeds of much of America's greatest potential- the defiant belief in individual civil rights, justice and equality - can be found by reading the Transcendentalists in their own words. This indispensable volume is highly recommended.