Emerson, Ralph Waldo | The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the autograph centenary edition

From the Library of an American Filmmaker

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The Autograph Centenary Edition of the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1903-4

22 volumes, 8vo. Signed by Houghton Mifflin (publisher), photogravure frontispieces and title page vignettes, titles and half-titles printed in red and black, numerous photogravure illustrations, one leaf of manuscript bound in to volume 1. Brown morocco, gilt-tooled with floral tools to cornerpieces and spines, replicated on turn-ins, with central panel of red morocco, spines with raised bands in six compartments, watered silk endpapers, top edge gilt.

The autograph centenary edition, number 574 of 600 signed and numbered copies, with a leaf of manuscript bound in.

The manuscript leaf is from Emerson's "Poetry and Imagination." Quoting from William Godwin's The Life of Chaucer, he writes:

"...only to sing when men have loaded me with bonds; for the moment I sing it, my chains fall in pieces, & I walk forth at liberty. I know a song, useful to all mankind for as soon as hatred inflames the sons of men, when I sing it, they are appeased. I know..."

"Poetry and Imagination," published in 1836, is now regarded as a significant work of Emerson's, and served as a point of inspiration for writers like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Henry David Thoreau.

A sumptuous set of Emerson, with an important manuscript leaf, offering evidence of the author's literary influences.

PROVENANCE:

Morris I. Kaplan (bookplate to front free endpaper; some adhesive stains where tipped on)