Nature
Emerson's first book, published anonymously in 1836, argues that the natural world is not a backdrop but a language, and that a person can read it if he is willing to be alone with it. The prose is aphoristic and sometimes ecstatic.
It is a short book and a strange one, more sermon than essay. The famous passage about becoming a transparent eyeball is easy to mock, but the underlying question, whether nature has meaning or only use, is still worth arguing about. Read it outdoors if possible.
Public-domain status
First published in 1836. In the United States, works published before 1930 are in the public domain. In the European Union the general term is the life of the author plus 70 years; Ralph Waldo Emerson died in 1882, so this work has been free to republish there since 1953.
Read the text free
- Project Gutenberg, ebook no. 29433 — plain text, EPUB and Kindle, checked by us
- Internet Archive — scanned editions and free audiobooks
- Open Library — edition history and borrowable copies
Keep reading
- Walden — Henry David Thoreau, 1854
- Essays: First Series — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841
- The Souls of Black Folk — W. E. B. Du Bois, 1903
- Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen, 1813
- Concord — the city behind the books
- Reading lists — 19 ways through the collection
Find a print edition on Amazon · As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Disclosure