The Best of Ralph Waldo Emerson: A collection of his greatest work (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781451510218)

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882) Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet, best remembered for leading the New Thought/Transcendentalist movement of the mid 19th century. He was a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Emerson expressed the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature (included in this title). He gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence". When he was asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man."