Transcendentalism was the first major intellectual movement in U.S. history championing the
inherent divinity of each individual as well as the value of collective social action. In the
mid-nineteenth century the movement took off changing how Americans thought about religion
literature the natural world class distinctions the role of women and the existence of
slavery. Edited by the eminent scholar Lawrence Buell this comprehensive anthology contains
the essential writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Margaret Fuller and their
fellow visionaries. There are also reflections on the movement by Charles Dickens Henry James
Walt Whitman Louisa May Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne. This remarkable volume introduces the
radical innovations of a brilliant group of thinkers whose impact on religious thought social
reform philosophy and literature continues to reverberate in the twenty-first century.
