The Best Read Naturalist

Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in American nature writing, yet until now readers have had no book devoted to this central theme in his work. The Best Read Naturalist fills this lacuna, placing several of Emersons lesser-known pieces of nature writing in conversation with his canonical essays. Organized chronologically, the thirteen selectionsmade up of sermons, lectures, addresses, and essaysreveal an engagement with natural history that spanned Emersons career. As we watch him grapple with what he called the book of nature, a more environmentally connected thinker emergesa green Emerson deeply concerned with the physical world and fascinated with the ability of science to reveal a correspondence between the order of nature and that of the mind. The Best Read Naturalist illuminates the vital influence that the study of natural history had on the development of Emersons mature philosophy.