Essays First and Second Series Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson Here in one volume are both the Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series from one of the most influential philosophers in American history. — These essays contain his most important writing and radiate with sensitivity and wonder. Here Emerson's prose shows him to be both a vigorous thinker and a profound mystic, a man of exquisite feeling ... more »combined with stern moral fiber. His strong love of retirement from life, contemplation of the sublime and the mystic, his self-reliance, and his strong character left their stamp not only on such writers as Thoreau, Whitman, and Emily Dickinson but also on the American character at large.« less