The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II.
The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II.
Two of the nineteenth century's most electric minds, in private conversation for nearly four decades. This volume captures Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson at their most unguarded: arguing about literature, wrestling with the nature of work, mourning mutual friends, and confessing the torments of creative life. Carlyle, battling his massive biography of Cromwell, pours out his frustrations about English readers and the 'condition of England' question. Emerson, editing The Dial and nurturing American Transcendentalism, reflects on his literary ventures and the peculiar loneliness of thinking differently. Here is friendship across the Atlantic stripped of ceremony, where two men who shaped modern intellectual life reveal their doubts, their debts to each other, and the slow ripening of ideas that would influence generations. For anyone curious about how great thoughts actually come to be, these letters offer something rare: genius caught in the act of thinking.
