Authors

Ralph Waldo Emerson

RALF WAW-doh EM-er-son (he went by his middle name, Waldo, from boyhood)

Also Known As Waldo Emerson

Citation Formats

General Reference

Literature Atlas. "Ralph Waldo Emerson." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://literature.interactiveatlas.org/authors/ralph-waldo-emerson.

APA Style

Literature Atlas. (n.d.). Ralph Waldo Emerson. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://literature.interactiveatlas.org/authors/ralph-waldo-emerson

BibTeX

@misc{literatureatlas-ralph-waldo-emerson,
  author = {Literature Atlas},
  title = {Ralph Waldo Emerson},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://literature.interactiveatlas.org/authors/ralph-waldo-emerson},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

American essayist, lecturer and poet, the central figure of New England Transcendentalism and the writer most credited with giving the American essay its own voice, distinct from the British model. A former Unitarian minister who resigned his Boston pulpit in 1832, he reached most readers through the essay collections Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), and gave early, decisive public support to Walt Whitman on the strength of the 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass.

Facts

Birth Year

1803 1

Birth Date

1803-05-25 1

Death Year

1882 1

Death Date

1882-04-27 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Bronson Alcott

Both part of the Concord Transcendentalist circle.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Henry David Thoreau

Emerson owned the Walden Pond land Thoreau built his cabin on and urged him to keep a journal.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Margaret Fuller

Fuller edited The Dial 1840-1842; Emerson succeeded her as editor 1842-1844.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Essay

Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature

Thomas Carlyle

Correspondents and friends from their 1833 meeting in Scotland until Carlyle death in 1881; Emerson arranged the first American edition of Sartor Resartus (Boston, 1836).

Source Simon Heffer, Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle (1995)Simon Heffer