Emerson in His Own Time
“I can't imagine a better source in one volume for the biographer, critic, or student of Emerson. Emerson in His Own Time is a treasury of fascinating anecdotes, many of them not generally known.”—Jerome Loving
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was one of the seminal figures in American intellectual history, literature, and culture. In his time he was the acknowledged leader of the Transcendentalist movement; his poetic legacy stretches from Walt Whitman to Allen Ginsberg; his educational ideals have been embraced by many; and his religious concepts greatly influenced the development of the Unitarian (later Unitarian Universalist) church.
Photographs follow page 110
Introduction
Chronology
Amos Bronson Alcott, [A Visit to Emerson at Concord in 1837]
Convers Francis, [Remarks on Emerson in 1838, 1855, and 1858]
Ellis Gray Loring, [A Visit from Emerson in 1838]
[Annie Sawyer Downs], [Reminiscences of a Childhood in Concord in the 1840s]
Richard Frederick Fuller, “The Younger Generation in 1840 from the Diary of a New England Boy”
[Margaret Fuller], [At Concord with the Emersons in 1842]
Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlyle, [A Visit from Emerson in 1847]
Anonymous, “Emerson as a Lecturer” (1849)
Herman Melville, [Letter to Evert A. Duyckinck about Emerson as a Lecturer] (1849)
Fredrika Bremer, From The Homes of the New World; Impressions of America (1853)
[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn], “Mr. Emerson’s Lectures” (1864)
[George William Curtis], [Emerson as Seen from the “Editor’s Easy Chair” in 1865]
Anonymous, “Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1865)
James Russell Lowell, From My Study Windows (1871)
Bronson Alcott, “Fuller, Thoreau, Emerson…. The Substance of a ‘Conversation’” (1871)
Anna Alcott Pratt, Louisa May Alcott, and Ellen Tucker Emerson, [“House burned, Wednesday, 24 July (1872)”]
Anonymous, “Emerson: A Literary Interview” (1874)
Octavius Brooks Frothingham, From Transcendentalism in New England: A History (1876)
Walt Whitman, From Prose Works 1892 (1881-1882)
Ellen Tucker Emerson, [Emerson’s Death] (1882)
Louisa May Alcott, “Reminiscences of Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1882)
Frederic Henry Hedge, [Reminiscences of Emerson] (1882)
[Edwin Percy Whipple], “Some Recollections of Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1882)
Julia Ward Howe and Ednah Dow Cheney, From Concord Lectures on Philosophy… at the Concord School of Philosophy in 1882
A. B. Muzzey, From Reminiscences and Memorials of the Men of the Revolution and Their Families (1883)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, From Ralph Waldo Emerson (1884)
Pendleton King, “Notes of Conversations with Emerson” (1884)
[Annie Adams Fields], “Glimpses of Emerson” (1884)
Frank Bellew, “Recollections of Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1884)
E. P. Peabody, “Emerson as Preacher” (1885)
Edward Waldo Emerson, Ellen Tucker Emerson, and Edith Emerson Forbes, [Emerson as Remembered by His Children] (1889 and 1897, 1902, 1921)
Charles J. Woodbury, From Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson (1890)
Francis Espinasse, From Literary Recollections and Sketches (1893)
William Henry Furness, “Random Reminiscences of Emerson” (1893)
W. J. Stillman, “The Philosophers’ Camp. Emerson, Agassiz, Lowell, and Others in the Adirondacks” (1893)
William Dean Howells, “My First Visit to New England” (1894)
Frank Preston Stearns, From Sketches from Concord and Appledore (1895)
Rebecca Harding Davis, “A Little Gossip” (1900)
John Muir, [Emerson in the Yosemite Valley] (1901)
William James and Caroline Hazard, From The Centenary of the Birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903)
Julian Hawthorne, “Personal Glimpses of Emerson” (1903)
Moncure D. Conway, “Emerson: The Teacher and the Man” (1903)
Daniel Chester French, “A Sculptor’s Reminiscences of Emerson” (1916)
Robert Underwood Johnson, From Remembered Yesterdays (1923)
Kate Douglas Wiggin, From My Garden of Memory: An Autobiography (1923)
Elizabeth Oakes Smith, “Recollections of Emerson, His Household and Friends” (1924)
Index