Emerson's enduring power is apparent everywhere in American literature: there is scarcely a writer or philosopher who has not been touched by his vision. The first volume of his writing in The Library of America covers his most productive period, and encompasses his richest and most important works. Here in their entirety are the books that established Emerson's colossal reputation as our most eloquent champion of individualism and as a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society: Nature; Addresses, and Lectures; Essays, First and Second Series; Representative Men; and The Conduct of Life. Emerson's remarkable poetic gifts are represented by his published volumes and the best of the astonishing poems from his manuscripts, journals, and notebooks. No other volume conveys so fully the exhilaration and exploratory energy of perhaps America's greatest writer.