This version of Nature is an 1843 revision to the popular essay written and published in 1836. In the original essay, Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism, and suggested that reality can be understood by studying nature. Within the essay, Emerson divides nature into four usages: Commodity, Beauty, Language and Discipline. These distinctions define how humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication...

First published in 1799, Charles Brockden Brown's "Edgar Huntly, Or Memoirs of a Sleep Walker" is the story of its title character, who upon learning of the death of the brother of his friend and love interest, Mary Waldegrave, visits where he died in the woods in rural Pennsylvania. There he discovers a man, Clithero, a servant from a nearby farm, suspiciously lurking about near the scene of Waldegrave's murder. Suspecting Clithero, Edgar begins...

This 1896 book was assembled for a private printing when it was discovered that the author, a distinguished critic and novelist, had written nine anonymous pieces for the English newspaper. Here are "English Literature," "Browning," "Wordsworth," "Amiel's 'Journal Intime," "Robert Elsmere," "Their Majesties' Servants," "Ferdinand Fabre," and two more.

This 1893 collection of eighteen pieces is Grahame's first book. Rather than fantasies, it contains genial, rambling essays on such subjects as "The Romance of the Road," "The Rural Pan," "The White Poppy," "The Fairy Wicket," and "The Lost Centaur." Some of the essays prefigure his fictions, especially his masterpiece, The Wind in the Willows.

John Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, first published in 1865, stands as a classic nineteenth-century statement on the natures and duties of men and women. Although widely popular in its time, the work in its entirety has been out of print since the early twentieth century. This volume returns Sesame and Lilies to easy availability and reunites the two halves of the work: Of Kings' Treasuries, in which Ruskin critiques, Victorian manhood, and Of Queens'...

H. M. Tomlinson was a war correspondent for the British army in France during World War I, an experience that made him fervently anti-war. Waiting for Daylight, published shortly after World War I, is a memorable and penetrating collection of essays about his experiences during the war and his reactions to modern warfare.

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's thesis that children are naturally good at birth violated the traditional Christian doctrine of origin sin. His argument that education should arise from children's natural instincts and impulses rather than trying to civilize and socialize them challenged traditional schooling. Rousseau's defenders see him as a pioneering thinker whose revolutionary...

This collection of the first series of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson collects some of the classic thoughts of this important American and leader of the Transcendentalist movement. Contained in this volume are the following essays: History, Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over-Soul, Circles, Intellect, and Art.