The forty-five sermons collected in Volume 3 were composed and first delivered between October 1830 and November 1831. During that time Emerson's first wife, Ellen Tucker Emerson, died of tuberculosis, a loss that deeply affected Emerson.

Transcribed and edited from manuscripts in Harvard's University's Houghton Library, the sermons are presented in a clear text approximating as nearly as possible the original version delivered to Emerson's congregation.  As well as the detailed chronology, explanatory footnotes, and textual endnotes found in previous volumes, this one contains a comprehensive index. 

About the editor

Ronald A. Bosco is Professor of English at the State University of New York at Albany.  Among the books he has edited are volume 16 of The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Albert J. von Frank is Professor of English at Washington State University.  He is the author of The Sacred Game:  Provincialism and Frontier Consciousness in American Literature, 1630-1860 and coeditor of The Poetry Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson.