"Richardson's rich and extensive book on Ralph Waldo Emerson is a guide to the fire that burned always at the center of Emerson's life. . . . To read this book is to be touched on the shoulder by a thousand years of poetry and thought. . . . For those who would understand Emerson, it is unforgettable; it is essential."--Mary Oliver, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

"Emerson himself would surely have applauded Robert Richardson's monumental study, which treats the sage's thought not as a set of coldly reasoned propositions but as the continually shifting outcome of a struggle to surmount crisis and tragedy. In the process, Richardson has fashioned our most credible portrait of a vulnerable, driven, fully human Emerson."--Frederick Crews, author of The Sins of the Father

"The best biography I have read in years. Mr. Richardson is just the splendid writer Emerson has long deserved, and he makes the story great-hearted, inclusive, intellectual, and inspiring. I was enthralled."--Edward Hoagland

"A superb work . . . that will quickly come to be regarded as the definitive biography of Emerson. . . . Richardson's greatest achievement is to restore for us the emotional and passionate element of Emerson's life and personality, and to make us understand how significant an element that was. . . . He brings a very complex and interesting man--not just a thinker--to life."--David M. Robinson, author of Emerson and the Conduct of Life

"Scholars and general readers alike will return to this comprehensive and painstaking study for a long time to come."--Joel Porte, editor of Emerson's Essays

"The most readable biography of Emerson ever written and also one of the best from a scholarly standpoint."--Lawrence Buell, Harvard University

"In this magnificent study Emerson stands before us not only as the embodiment of his 'American Scholar' but also as a human mind. Richardson's Emerson is one whom we want to reread, but, more important, also whom we want to know as a friend and mentor."--Philip F. Gura