American Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson Letters and Social Aims 1876 First Edition Final Lifetime Essays

Ralph Waldo Emerson

First Edition

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Letters and Social Aims, 1876 collection of essays representing Emerson’s final published volume during his lifetime and documenting late nineteenth century American Transcendentalist thought on culture, individuality, and intellectual life. The work brings together earlier essays from the 1840s with later material prepared in collaboration with his literary executor James Elliot Cabot, offering a retrospective consolidation of Emerson’s philosophical concerns. The volume contributes to the study of American intellectual history, particularly the development of Transcendentalism and its engagement with literature, ethics, and cultural criticism in the post Civil War period.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Letters and Social Aims. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1876. First edition, first state, with “N” on page 209 and the readings “inviolate” and “choices” on page 308. Octavo volume in original green cloth over beveled boards with gilt lettering to the spine. The collection includes essays such as “Poetry and Imagination,” “Social Aims,” “Eloquence,” “Resources,” “Quotation and Originality,” “Progress of Culture,” “Persian Poetry,” “Inspiration,” “Greatness,” and “Immortality,” reflecting Emerson’s sustained inquiry into language, creativity, and the moral dimensions of intellectual life. A contemporary gift inscription appears on the front free endpaper, with occasional pencil annotations.

Published at the close of Emerson’s career, this volume situates his mature thought within broader nineteenth century debates over culture, originality, and the role of the individual in society. The inclusion of earlier essays alongside later editorial collaboration underscores the continued relevance of his ideas across decades of American literary and philosophical development. As his final lifetime publication, the work offers a summative statement of Transcendentalist philosophy as it evolved in the later nineteenth century. Minor rubbing to head and tail of spine with light handling wear; binding tight and boards well preserved; overall very good. A well preserved first state of Emerson’s final published essay collection.

Item #17037

Price: $880.00