The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Autograph Centenary Edition.

With an original holograph double-sided, fold-out manuscript leaf written in ink by Emerson bound into Volume I. The leaf, measuring approximately 8 by 10 inches on blue paper, is from Emerson's 1856 essay "English Traits." It begins "French have no . . . romances have no comedy since Moliere because they have no manners which only free peoples can have." Emerson has drawn a line through three lines of manuscript, and placed a vertical line down the center of each page, possible because he transcribed it onto a fair copy.


Frontispieces. Illustrated with 56 engravings and photogravures. Large 8vo. ¾-green leather; spines with gilt letters and gilt decoration, 5 raised bands; gilt tooling to the front and rear panels; top edge gilt; marbled end papers and boards. Cambridge, Printed at the Riverside Press, 1903-4. First Edition. 12 volumes. Limited to 600 numbered sets, signed in Volume I by "Houghton Mifflin Co." This is set #197.



This edition includes all of Emerson's poems, lectures, biographical sketches and letters, as well as his famous essays, several of which here see print 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). Emerson remains among the pillars of the American Romantic Movement, and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that followed him. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man." Spines darkened, interiors clean and bright, with wide margins, uncut and unopened. An exceptional set of Emerson's Works enhanced by the inclusion of the manuscript page.