Self-Reliance : The Unparalleled Vision of Personal Power from America's Greatest Transcendental Philosopher

In Manners, Ralph Waldo Emerson expounds on the meaning of customs and politeness in civil society. He argues that the purpose of manners is more to facilitate the creation and proper working of society, and not to establish hierarchies.

In The Poet, an essay by U.S. writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, the author expresses the need for the United States to have its own new and unique poet to write about the new country's virtues and vices. It is not about men of poetical talents, or of indu...

Here are eight stories from master American writers of the nineteenth century. They vary from sinister tales by Ambrose Bierce – why is that window boarded up? – and a reflective moment in the life of a woman without children, ...

In Gifts Ralph Waldo Emerson muses on the function of and expectations surrounding the giving of gifs. He touches on what gifts communicate about the nature of the giver and receiver, and how the best kind of gift is a gift of love.

The Gettysburg Address, delivered by Lincoln on November 19, 1863 in the aftermath of a narrow, bloody Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, is considered one of the greatest speeches in American history.

Noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau spent two years, two months, and two days chronicling his near-isolation in the small cabin he built in the woods near Walden Pond on land owned by his mentor, the father of Transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo ...

Five great American short story writers, dating from the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth centuries are represented here. Different in atmosphere and writing style, they nevertheless caught the mood and concerns of the day in a way that was distinct...

This unique collection, compiled especially for Naxos AudioBooks, features original recordings from 1908–1946 of Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Address, the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes, the rarely h...

First published in 1849, this essay argues that individuals have rights and duties in relation to their government. Motivated by his disgust over both slavery and the Mexican-American War, Thoreau argued that individuals must not permit nor enable t...