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Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Method of Nature, 1841

Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston, 1803 - 1882, Concord, Massachusetts)

The Method of Nature, 1841

Ink on paper in leather binding , 26 x 28.5 x 1.5 cm (10 1/4 x 11 1/4 x 9/16 in.)

Commentary

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a central figure in the Transcendentalist movement. His writing is synonymous with its progressive social values and spiritual identification with the natural environment. This original manuscript contains an address given at a college in Maine in 1841 and shows signs of the author’s own edits. Isabella Stewart Gardner displayed this manuscript alongside materials related to other important American authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman, in the Blue Room.