Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly, a read-through rather than a reference
Review: Having read piece-meal through alot of the Trancendentalists (but never picked up anything more than a quote from Emerson), I picked up this book expecting just to read a couple of essays for perspective and stow it away on my shelves for reference.Thirty-six hours later I was setting the book onto my shelves, but for the sole purpose of retiring for some much needed sleep before spending another five or six hours finishing the book. The editors deserve a tremendous amount of credit for putting the essays and letters together in a way that allows the reader to walk cleanly through the book without losing sight of the author. Having finished the book, I have to admit that Emerson is in a dead-heat with Throreau (for me) as the most inspiring and intelligent of the time. Amazingly clean read with delightful insights that are still relevant today.
Rating:
Summary: Waters that keep me afloat
Review: My daughter sent me one of these e-mail questionnaires intended to reveal your personality. One of the questions on it was, "What person, living or dead, would you give $10,000 to spend an hour with?" In that moment, I typed in "Ralph Waldo Emerson". He's not the only one, but I certainly would beg, borrow or steal $10,000 for an hour with him -- not Thoreau, not Whitman, not Schiller... but Emerson I would. And Goethe I would. But my simple heart lies closer to Emerson than to Goethe. I have gone through 4-5 of his selected works, and this is one of my two favorite. 30 years ago, when I entered high school, we studied the Transcendentalists in a basic lit class, and something about Emerson just glowed in my mind. The teacher told me that with time I'd get to know other authors better, and Emerson would take his place alongside a legion of others. But he was in a degree mistaken. Emerson never did diminish. I have never fallen out of love with him. And the relationship is a serious one. When the shadow of doubt creeps over me that my presence on this planet might be some kind of horrendous mistake, I still crack open a volume of Emerson. And he has never failed to recall me to myself.
Rating:
Summary: Waters that keep me afloat
Review: My daughter sent me one of these e-mail questionnaires intended to reveal your personality. One of the questions on it was, "What person, living or dead, would you give $10,000 to spend an hour with?" In that moment, I typed in "Ralph Waldo Emerson". He's not the only one, but I certainly would beg, borrow or steal $10,000 for an hour with him -- not Thoreau, not Whitman, not Schiller... but Emerson I would. And Goethe I would. But my simple heart lies closer to Emerson than to Goethe. I have gone through 4-5 of his selected works, and this is one of my two favorite. 30 years ago, when I entered high school, we studied the Transcendentalists in a basic lit class, and something about Emerson just glowed in my mind. The teacher told me that with time I'd get to know other authors better, and Emerson would take his place alongside a legion of others. But he was in a degree mistaken. Emerson never did diminish. I have never fallen out of love with him. And the relationship is a serious one. When the shadow of doubt creeps over me that my presence on this planet might be some kind of horrendous mistake, I still crack open a volume of Emerson. And he has never failed to recall me to myself.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoreau was better....
Review: There is no doubt that Emerson is a predominant figure in American thought and literature, but it is important to remember that in this case Emersons work superseded himself. And I wonder, who is he, sitting in his study, to tell us about nature? I have a feeling that I would know more about nature if I stuck my head out the door. "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." Does he not damn himself with those words, he who writes and writes yet never actually does? In terms of writing there is none of the homey "nature" feel that Thoreau has, Thoreau's use of paradox, cutting prose, and onomatopoeia reflect the call of nature far more effectively than Emerson's discursives. Thoreau also took into account the "rank savagery" of nature instead of Emerson's unrealistic idealism that says "everything is good." By conventional moral standards nature encompasses all. I know the power of Emerson's message remains unvitiated by those hypocrisies and errors, but it is hard to be totally objective when reading his work. It would be like reading Nietzsche knowing that he went to Church every day waving a cross....
Rating:
Summary: The essential Emerson
Review: This edition contains many good pieces of writing by Emerson. Emerson is a philosophical and poetic thinker. This means his poetry is often philosophical and his philosophy as expressed in his essays often poetical. He is in one sense the quintessential American philosopher whose message is an optimistic and life- affirming one. He too is American in calling for a kind of human self- reliance and affirmation. And here it must be remembered that the controversial American moved away from Trinitarian Christianity to be a Unitarian whose sense of the Divinity was both Transcendental and Immanent. It is no accident that he is the great father- figure who hails Whitman's arrival on the scene for they both were capable of seeing in everyday life realities signs of the Divine. Emerson is not however the simple optimist one misreading makes him, but a person who knew deep personal tragedies and had a sense of difficulties of life. He does however believe in human powers and greatness, and he does speak primarily in terms of affirmation. He stands in a way at the center of much of American and even European thought, for it is difficult to think of either William James or Neitzsche without Emerson.
I cannot say that he has been a central figure in my life, but I have from time to time through his writings felt illumination and beauty, ' glad to the brink of fear' .
Rating:
Summary: Altering pieces of work
Review: With all the books written about philosophy today, and in the past, this should be perhaps, by far, the most sought after work. Camus and Dostoevsky have contributed much to thought and philosophy of existentialism, but this seems to, in its own way, surpass any labeling of a type of philosophy. Self-Reliance has to be one of the most understood pieces in the collection. Mr. Emerson speaks in a tone that is easily understood and thoughts explained in plain english, no degree required to understand. And once understood, ideas are easy to apply to our own life to better understand what we have read. Without a doubt, this book is a must in any thinkers library. Walt Whitman says it best about this book, "I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil." A genius of a book.
Rating:
Summary: Altering pieces of work
Review: With all the books written about philosophy today, and in the past, this should be perhaps, by far, the most sought after work. Camus and Dostoevsky have contributed much to thought and philosophy of existentialism, but this seems to, in its own way, surpass any labeling of a type of philosophy. Self-Reliance has to be one of the most understood pieces in the collection. Mr. Emerson speaks in a tone that is easily understood and thoughts explained in plain english, no degree required to understand. And once understood, ideas are easy to apply to our own life to better understand what we have read. Without a doubt, this book is a must in any thinkers library. Walt Whitman says it best about this book, "I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil." A genius of a book.
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