The Conduct of Life (Barnes & Noble Digital Library): Nature and Other Essays

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

This 1860 collection, based on Emerson's lectures, contains classic essays on broad topics such as "Fate," "Power," "Wealth," "Culture," and "Worship," among others. Printed in the year Lincoln became President, it probes questions of the necessary conditions for human life and freedom. Emerson's friend, the great English historian Thomas Carlyle, wrote of this book, "I never read from you such lightning-gleams of meaning as are to be found here."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Mar 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781411440081

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was the leading proponent of the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-nineteenth century. He was ordained as a Unitarian minister at Harvard Divinity School but served for only three years before developing his own spiritual philosophy based on individualism and intuition. His essay Nature is arguably his best-known work and was both groundbreaking and highly controversial when it was first published. Emerson also wrote poetry and lectured widely across the US.