Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Autograph Centenary Edition.

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo.

Item Number: 4359

Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1903.

Autograph Centenary Edition with a double sided manuscript in Emerson’s hand bound into volume one. Octavo, 12 volumes. Number 56 of 600. Three quarters morocco, gilt tooling to the spine, front and rear panels. Top edge gilt, marbled endpapers, raised bands. Numerous mounted photogravure illustrations. In near fine condition. A nice example of this set.

When Emerson died in 1882 he was the most famous public intellectual in America. This edition of the Complete Works includes all of Emerson’s poems, lectures, biographical sketches, letters, and his famous essays, several of which are here printed for the first time. Their "ethical inspiration and stimulation, their occasional startling phrase, their individualistic idealism, which stirred renascent Yankee New England to its depths, speaks with the same simple power and force in the midst of modern complexities" (Grolier, American 100 47).