Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson's second essay collection appeared in 1844. It includes eight essays-"The Poet," "Experience," "Character," "Manners," "Gifts," "Nature," "Politics," and "Nominalist and Realist"-and one address, "New England Reformers." These essays have a lightness of tone and an irony absent from the earlier writings, but are no less memorable.