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.