Ralph Waldo Emerson 
The Illustrated Emerson 
Essays and Poems

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”



Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American essayist and poet. One of the young nation’s first recognized public intellectuals, he championed the writing of Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman and opined on everything from the evils of slavery to the glories of solitude. His essays such as “Self-Reliance” argued for a distinctly American style of philosophical individualism, untethered to hidebound traditions and prejudices.



Edited by professor David Mikics (
The Annotated Emerson) and enhanced with gorgeous woodcut art, this collection of Emerson’s essays and poetry is a beautiful introduction to one of America’s greatest writers and thinkers.

About the author

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an American essayist and poet.  Along with such figures as Henry Thoreau and Margaret Fuller, he was an originator and, through the magazine
The Dial, popularizer of the Transcendentalist movement.  In essays like ‘Self-Reliance, ‘ he championed a distinctly American brand of individualism. 


David Mikics is John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Honors and English at the University of Houston. His books include
Slow Reading in a Hurried Age,  
The Annotated Emerson, and
Bellow’s People. A 2017 Guggenheim Fellow, he is a columnist for
Tablet magazine and lives in Brooklyn and Houston.