Selected Works

The first book of its kind to pair the writings of Emerson and Fuller, this text plays a major role in illuminating the contributions of both men and women to American Transcendentalism. In addition to a generous selection of Emerson's essays, the complete text of Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and a selection of Fuller's dispatches from Europe, the volume contains copious contextualizing footnotes and an excellent introduction. Readers also explore the struggles of both writers to change their views in response to political changes of the times.

The first book of its kind to pair the writings of Emerson and Fuller, this text plays a major role in illuminating the contributions of both men and women to American Transcendentalism. In addition to a generous selection of Emerson's essays, the complete text of Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and a selection of Fuller's dispatches from Europe, the volume contains copious contextualizing footnotes and an excellent introduction. Readers also explore the struggles of both writers to change their views in response to political changes of the times.

I live in Newport Beach, California, in central Orange County, about forty-five miles south of Los Angeles and seventy-five miles north of San Diego. I teach American literature and culture at the University of California, Irvine. In my teaching and writing, I am trying to broaden the scope of American literature in terms of works and issues. A multicultural society needs a multicultural literature.This volume on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller will be the first anthology to combine Emerson's and Fuller's writings, thereby making certain that teachers and students using this book will be aware of men's and women's contributions to American Transcendentalism. In this same way, the volume focuses on the debates and conflicts among the Transcendentalists about such political questions as abolition, women's rights, westward expansion, and industrialization. This volume will represent effectively the struggles of Emerson and Fuller to change their philosophical views in response to the political crises of their times.

Paul Lauter is the Smith Professor of Literature at Trinity College. He has served as president of the American Studies Association and is a major figure in the revision of the American literary canon.