Essays, First Series and Second Series (2 Vol. Set)

Philadelphia: David McKay, 1890. 1st Edition Thus. Hardcover_cloth. Very Good-Collectible. 5.25"x7.5"; First Series - 396 pages with 12 essays/ Second Series - 307 pages w/ 12 essays; Marroon boards w/gold gilt on top edge and gold gilt lettering on spine; Spines straight, binding tight; American Classic Series; Not x-library, no DJ, unmarked. First Series: top letters on spine worn, nicks on back cover along edge, corners & bottom of spine has minimal rubs, worn on back cover pages tanned. Second Series: bottom letters on spine worn, minimal wear on covers, hardly rubbed on corners, pages tanned. Both very very nice for age. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a 19th century American essayist, poet and leader in the transcendentalist movement. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s. Emerson published his first essay, Nature, in 1836. After writing this essay Emerson gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes called America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence." Some of his more well-known essays include Nature, Self-Reliance, Compensation, The Over-Soul, The Poet, Experience, and The American Scholar.