The year’s best articles from the leading on-line source of new research on the Revolution and Founding eras
The Journal of the American Revolution, Annual Volume 2022, presents the journal’s best historical research and writing over the past calendar year. The volume is designed for institutions, scholars, and enthusiasts to provide a convenient overview of the latest research and scholarship in American Revolution and Founding Era studies. This year's articles are:
Massachusettensis and Novanglus: The Last Great Debate Prior to the War by James M. Smith
Wampum Belts to Canada: Stockbridge Indian Ambassadors’ Dangerous 1775 Peace Mission by Mark R. Anderson
Ethan Allen’s “Motley Parcel of Soldiery” at Montreal by Mark R. Anderson
The Devil at the Helm: A Quote That Went Astray by Don N. Hagist
Thomas Knowlton’s Revolution by David Price
Major Robert Rogers and the American Revolution by Scott M. Smith
La Petite Guerre and Indian Irregular Manner of War: Siblings, But Not Twins by Brian Gerring
George Washington and the First Mandatory Immunization by Richard J. Werther
French Adventurers, Patriots, and Pretentious Imposters in the Fight for American Independence by Arthur S. Lefkowitz
The Cherokee-American War from the Cherokee Perspective by Jordan Baker
The Numerical Strength of George Washington’s Army During the 1777 Philadelphia Campaign by Gary Ecelbarger and Michael C. Harris
A Reconsideration of Continental Army Numerical Strength at Valley Forge by Gary Ecelbarger and Michael C. Harris
American Indians at Valley Forge by Joseph Lee Boyle
The Discovery of a Letter from a Soldier of the First Rhode Island Regiment by Christian McBurney
“The Predicament We Are In”: How Paperwork Saved the Continental Army by Mike Matheny
Sir Henry Clinton’s Generalship by John Ferling
The Varick Transcripts and the Preservation of the War by Justin McHenry
“A Mere Youth”: James Monroe’s Revolutionary War by John A. Ruddima
Haitian Soldiers at the Siege of Savannah by Robert S. Davis
George Washington’s Culper Spy Ring: Separating Fact from Fiction by Bill Bleyer
Texas, Cattle, Cowboys, Ranchers, Indian Raids, and the American Revolution by George Kotlik
The Odyssey of Loyalist Colonel Samuel Bryan by Douglas R. Dorney, Jr.
“She Had Gone to the Army . . . to Her Husband”: Judith Lines’s Unremarked Life by John U. Rees
The Yorktown Tragedy: George Washington’s Slave Roundup by Gregory J. W. Urwin
Such as are Absolutely Free: Benjamin Thompson’s Black Troopers by Todd W. Braisted
The King of Sweden: Friendly Foe of the United States by Richard Werther
Shifting Indian Policy of the Articles of Confederation by John DeLee
Justice, Mercy, and Treason: John Marshall’s and Mercy Otis Warren’s Treatments of Benedict Arnold by Ray Mirante
A Chance Amiss: George Washington and the Fiasco of Spain’s Gift Diplomacy by Elisa Vargas
The Constitutional Convention Debates the Electoral College by Jason Yonce
Respected Citizen of Washington City: The Mystery of  Will Costin, Freed Mount Vernon Slave by David O. Stewart
The Impeachment of Senator William Blount  by Andrew A. Zellers-Frederick
Instinctive Temporary Unity: Examining Public Opinion During the Whiskey Rebellion by Jonathan Curran
“Good and Sufficient Testimony”: The Development of the Revolutionary War Pension Plan by Michael Barbieri

The year’s best articles from the leading on-line source of new research on the American Revolution and Founding Eras

The Journal of the American Revolution, Annual Volume 2023, presents the journal’s best historical research and writing over the past calendar year. The volume is designed for institutions, scholars, and enthusiasts to provide a convenient overview of the latest research and scholarship in American Revolution and Founding Era studies. Chosen by the Journal's editorial board, this year's articles are:

Charles Thomson and the Delaware by James M. Smith
Benjamin Franklin’s Unconventional Marriage to Deborah Read by Nancy Rubin Stuart
Governor William Franklin: Sagorighweyoghsta, “Great Arbiter” or “Doer of Justice” by Joseph E. Wroblewski
One of the “Powers for Good in the World:” Mercy Otis Warren by James M. Deitch
The British Soldiers Who Marched to Concord, April 19, 1775 by Don N. Hagist
Virginian Ned Streater, African American Minute Man by Patrick H. Hannum
The 1775 Duel Between Henry Laurens and John Faucheraud Grimké by Aaron J. Palmer
Washington’s Final Retreat: Asylum? by Alexander Lenarchyk
George III’s (Implicit) Sanction of the American Revolution by M. Andrew Holowchak
Edward Hand’s American Journey by David Price
Jemima Howe, Frontier Pioneer to Wealthy Widow by Jane Strachan
Hell’s Half-Acre: The Fall of Loyalist Crean Brush by Eric Wiser
Thomas Plumb, British Soldier, Writes Home from Rhode Island by Don N. Hagist
Unraveling the Beginning and Final Phasesin the Emergence of the French Alliance by Marvin L. Simner
Marinus Willett: The Exploits of an Unheralded War Hero by Richard J. Werther
Point/Counterpoint, 1777 Style: Dueling Proclamations from Israel Putnam and William Tryon by Todd W. Braisted
Did George Washington Swear at Charles Lee During the Battle of Monmouth? by Christian McBurney
Black Drummers in a Redcoat Regiment by Don N. Hagist
Under the Banner of War: Frontier Militia and Uncontrolled Violence by Timothy C. Hemmis
Rhode Island Acts to Prevent an Enslaved Family from Being Transported to the South by Christian McBurney
British Soldier John Ward Wins Back His Pocketbook by Don N. Hagist
Anthony Wayne’s Repulse at Bull’s Ferry, July 21, 1780 by Jim Piecuch
Two Hurricanes One Week Apart in 1780 by Bob Ruppert
Top Ten Weather Interventions by Don N. Hagist
The Fruits of Victory: Loyalist Prisoners in the Aftermath of Kings Mountain by William Caldwell
Top Ten Quotes by Francis Lord Rawdon by Todd W. Braisted
Russia and the Armed Neutrality of 1780 by Eric Sterner
Prelude to Yorktown: Washington and Rochambeau in New York by Benjamin Huggins
The Abdication(s) of King George III by Bob Ruppert
Jemima Howe: Two Competing Captivity Narratives by Jane Strachan
The Articles of Confederation—A Silver Lining by Richard J. Werther
Undeceived: Who Would Write the Political Story of the Revolution? by James M. Smith
Partisan Politics and the Laws Which Shaped the First Congress by Samuel T. Lair
“Characters Pre-eminent for Virtue and Ability”: The First Partisan Application of the Electoral College by Shawn David McGhee
Weaponizing Impeachment: Justice Samuel Chase and President Thomas Jefferson’s Battle Over the Process by Al Dickenson
Insurrection and Speculation: A Farmer, Financier, and a Surprising “Sharper” Seeded the Constitution by Scott M. Smith
Natural History in Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary America by Matteo Giuliani
A Great Englishman? British Views of George Washington, from Revolution to Rapprochement by Sam Edwards

Formerly known as The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, it will now bear the official title: The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. Instead of appearing as an annual, the Journal will begin appearing twice a year in 2003—in the spring and in the fall. The Journal will continue to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles as well as a professional resources section on teaching and scholarship in ethics—a preeminent source for further research.

Formerly known as the Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, this is the second volume of the first year of appearing biannually in its new incarnation and an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students, faculty, and scholars in search of the latest developments, thinking, and issues in the world of Christian and religious ethics.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students, faculty, and scholars in search of the latest developments, thinking, and issues in the world of Christian and religious ethics.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students, faculty, and scholars in search of the latest developments, thinking, and issues in the world of Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles as well as a professional resources section on teaching and scholarship in ethics—a preeminent source for further research. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship available.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles—a preeminent source for further research. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles--a preeminent source for further research. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship available.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles—a preeminent source for further research. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship available.

Formerly known as The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, it will now bear the official title: Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. Instead of appearing as an annual, the Journal will appear twice a year—in the spring and in the fall. The Journal will continue to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles as well as a professional resources section on teaching and scholarship in ethics—a preeminent source for further research.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics is an essential resource for students, faculty, and scholars in search of the latest developments and thinking in Christian and religious ethics.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students, faculty, and scholars in search of the latest developments, thinking, and issues in the world of Christian and religious ethics.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles as well as a professional resource section on teaching and scholarship in ethics—a preeminent source for further research. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship available.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles—a preeminent source for further research. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles as well as a professional resources section on teaching and scholarship in ethics—a preeminent source for further research. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship available.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles on a variety of topics. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship in the field.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles-a preeminent source for further research. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship available.

The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics continues to be an essential resource for students and faculty pursuing the latest developments in Christian and religious ethics, publishing refereed scholarly articles — a preeminent source for further research. The Journal also contains book reviews of the latest scholarship available.

This is the famous naturalist Thomas Nuttall's only surviving complete journal of his American scientific explorations. Covering his travels in Arkansas and what is now Oklahoma, it is pivotal to an understanding of the Old Southwest in the early nineteenth century, when the United States was taking inventory of its acquisitions from the Louisiana Purchase.

The account follows Nuttall's route from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, down the Ohio River to its mouth, then down the Mississippi River to the Arkansas Post, and up the Arkansas River with a side trip to the Red River. It is filled with valuable details on the plants, animals, and geology of the region, as well as penetrating observations of the resident native tribes, the military establishment at Fort Smith, the arrival of the first governor of Arkansas Territory, and the beginnings of white settlement.

Originally published in 1980 by the University of Oklahoma Press, this fine edited version of Nuttall's work boasts a valuable introduction, notes, maps, and bibliography by Savoie Lottinville. The editor provided common names for those given in scientific classification and substituted modern genus and species names for the ones used originally by Nuttall. The resulting journal is a delight to read for anyone—historian, researcher, visitor, resident, or enthusiast.

From cynical portrayals like The Front Page to the nuanced complexity of All the President’s Men, and The Insider, movies about journalists and journalism have been a go-to film genre since the medium's early days. Often depicted as disrespectful, hard-drinking, scandal-mongering misfits, journalists also receive Hollywood's frequent respect as an essential part of American life. 

Matthew C. Ehrlich tells the story of how Hollywood has treated American journalism. Ehrlich argues that films have relentlessly played off the image of the journalist as someone who sees through lies and hypocrisy, sticks up for the little guy, and serves democracy. He also delves into the genre's always-evolving myths and dualisms to analyze the tensions—hero and oppressor, objectivity and subjectivity, truth and falsehood—that allow journalism films to examine conflicts in society at large.

In-depth and dramatic, Andrew E. Stoner's biography follows the remarkable life of the brash, pioneering journalist. Shilts's reporting on AIDS in San Francisco broke barriers even as other gay writers and activists ridiculed his overtures to the mainstream and labeled him a traitor to the movement, charges the combative Shilts forcefully answered. Behind the scenes, Shilts overcame career-threatening struggles with alcohol and substance abuse to achieve the notoriety he had always sought, while the HIV infection he had purposely kept hidden began to take his life.

Filled with new insights and fascinating detail, The Journalist of Castro Street reveals the historic work and passionate humanity of the legendary investigative reporter and author.

In July 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to Thomas Carlyle: “My whole philosophy…teaches acquiescence and optimism.” The journals in this volume, beginning in the summer of 1841, record the spiritual history of two years that can be viewed as the most critical test in Emerson’s life of his ability to maintain the two aspects of that philosophy.

Early in 1842 his son Waldo died, and the man who only months before had described himself as “professor of the joyous Science” found himself once again confronting the full implications of grief. Seeking to comprehend the loss, he used his journals to articulate and rediscover the vital faith upon which his philosophy rested. In passages that went eventually into “Experience,” and in the earliest drafts of the poem “Threnody,” which appear for the first time in these pages, he discovered that even this harsh event had its “compensations.” Waldo’s death forced a reassessment of the convictions that gave life to his earlier writings. He transformed his numb responses into his most moving poetry and prose, giving new and significant meaning to his “old motto”: “I am Defeated all the time, yet to Victory I am born.”

Emerson’s motto is revealing, for its concepts display aptly the bipolarity that characterizes so much of his thought during these crucial years. He carried on at length an internal debate between the active and passive life styles. He saw his friends committed in their various ways to a more emphatic practice of their philosophies than he was able to undertake. Moving between engagement and withdrawal, commitment and aloofness, action and passivity, he consistently sought that point of equilibrium where the opposing forces of his thought could be held in creative tension.

As Emerson’s private experience deepened, he was becoming more completely the public man of letters: writing, publishing, editing The Dial, and lecturing. His travels brought him in contact with the leading men of his day, and with sights and exposures which even his beloved New England could not offer. Amidst the public duties, however, it was Concord which remained the still, vital center of his life. A brilliant and widely diversified range of visitors brought the world to Emerson’s home and inspired him to explore personal and literary issues which he would develop in his journals and later utilize in lectures and essays.

Emerson saw his calling as that of a poet; these journals are abundant in verse. Working versions of some of his most noted poems reveal the complex relationship between his private and literary life and the manner in which he attempted to fuse the diversities of his thought. In the eight regular journals and three miscellaneous notebooks of this volume is the record of these fusions. This period of his life closes, as it opened, with “acquiescence and optimism.” But the creative skepticism which is so characteristic of the second series of essays and the poems of 1841–1843 is the mark of a “very real philosophy,” tempered and tried by adversity, by success, and by “Experience.”

The final volume of the Harvard edition presents the journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s last years. In them, he reacts to the changing America of the post–Civil War years, commenting on Reconstruction, immigration, protectionism in trade, and the dangers of huge fortunes in few hands—as well as on baseball and the possibilities of air travel. His role as a Harvard Overseer evokes his thoughts on education during crucial years of reform in American universities.

His travels take him to Europe for the third time, and for the first time he encounters the new garden of California and the enigma of Egypt. He continues to lecture, and a second volume of poems and two more collections of essays, culled from his manuscripts, are published. Finally, his late journals show Emerson confronting his loss of creative vigor, husbanding his powers, and maintaining his equanimity in the face of decline.

This concluding volume thus gives a complex picture of Emerson in his last sixteen years, facing old age but still the advocate of “newness” throughout the world.

The Civil War is a pervasive presence in the journals in this volume. “The war searches character,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. Both his reading and his writing reflected his concern for the endurance of the nation, whose strength lay in the moral strength of the people. He read military biographies and memoirs, while turning again to Persian, Chinese, and Indian literature. The deaths of Clough, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and his aunt Mary Moody Emerson prompted him to reread their letters and journals, remembering and reappraising.

These were stirring, poignant years for Emerson. The times were hard, his lecturing was curtailed, and a new book seemed out of the question. He felt the losses, fears, and frustrations that come to those who believe in a cause they are too old to fight for. But his respected position as a man of letters brought him some unusual experiences, such as a trip to Washington in which he met President Lincoln, Secretaries Seward and Chase, and other key figures in the government. Inspecting West Point as a member of the Board of Visitors, he was deeply impressed by the character and spartan training of the cadets who were soon to see action.

At the war’s end, busy again with a heavy lecture schedule and feeling his age a little, he took a long look back at the conflict and concluded that war “heals a deeper wound than any it makes.”

The journals from 1854 to 1861 show the ripeness of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thought overshadowed by the gravest problem of his time—slavery. In addition to completing English Traits (1856) and Conduct of Life (1860), Emerson wrote many of the lectures and articles that made up his next book, Society and Solitude. He also contributed often to The Atlantic Monthly after helping to found that magazine in 1857. Throughout these years he extended his strenuous trips as a lyceum lecturer, crossing and recrossing the frozen Mississippi several times each winter. In Concord, he continued his omnivorous reading, his beloved walks, and his friendships with Alcott, Channing, and Thoreau, but at home or away he saw America’s future darkening daily. In 1856, Emerson wrote to his brother William, “But what times are these, & how they make our studies impertinent, & even ourselves the same! I am looking into the map to see where I shall go with my children when Boston & Massachusetts surrender to the slave-trade.”

Influenced by events such as the murder of New England men in bloody Kansas and the assault on Charles Sumner in the U.S. Congress in 1856, by a growing friendship with Theodore Parker, and by John Brown’s visits to Concord in 1857 and 1859, Emerson became one of the most notable speakers against slavery. He armed himself for his emergence from the study by marshalling his thoughts on liberty as he would have ranged his thoughts on any other topic. Notebook WO Liberty, rediscovered in the Library of Congress in 1964, collects his ideas on slavery and human liberty. Probably begun in 1854 it contains drafts or records of seven antislavery speeches, including his major antislavery address, “American Slavery,” first given in January, 1855. These notebooks and journals bring the philosopher of "the infinitude of the private man" to January 1861 and the brink of war.

The journals printed in this volume, covering the years 1852 to 1855, find Emerson increasingly drawn to the issues and realities of the pragmatic, hard-working nineteenth century. His own situation as a middle-aged, property-owning New Englander with a large household to support gave him a strong sense of everyday financial necessity, and his wide reading for his projected book on the English impressed him deeply with the worldly success that had come to that unphilosophical people. The growing crisis over slavery at home, moreover, demanded the attention of every citizen, even one as reluctant to engage in social issues as Emerson.

Emerson's extensive reading about the English, which ranged from Camden's Britannia through the diaries of Samuel Pepys and Thomas Moore to the latest issues of the London Times, convinced him that, despite its materialism, England was "the best of actual nations." The robust physical health of the English, their common sense, and their instinct for fair play insured that the future belonged to them and their transatlantic cousins, the Americans.

Yet the facts of American political life often led Emerson to wonder whether his country had any future at all. So long as his fellow citizens were willing to countenance the evil of slavery, they could not play their proper role in the world, the pages of his journals indicate, Emerson, like an increasing number of other Americans, was coming to believe that the issue had to he resolved, whatever the cost.

In faithfully reproducing all of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s handwritten journals and notebooks, this edition is succeeding in revealing Emerson the man and the thinker. The old image of the ideal nineteenth-century gentleman, created by editorial omission of his spontaneous thoughts, is replaced by the picture of Emerson as he really was. His frank and often bitter criticisms of men and society, his “nihilizing,” his views of woman, his ideas of the Negro, of religion, of God—these and other expressions of his private thought and feeling, formerly deleted or subdued, are here restored. Restored also is the full evidence needed for studies of his habits of composition, the development of his style, and the sources of his ideas. Canceled passages are reproduced, misreadings are corrected, and hitherto unpublished manuscripts are now printed.

Here is the twelfth volume, which makes available nine of Emerson’s lecture notebooks, covering a span of twenty-seven years, from 1835 to 1862, from apprenticeship to fame. These notebooks contain materials Emerson collected for the composition of his lectures, articles, and essays during those years, a complex mixture of index-like surveys of his journals, lists of possible topics and titles, salvaged journal passages and revisions, new drafts ranging from brief paragraphs to several pages in length, notes and translations from his reading, working notes, and partial outlines. In them we see Emerson at work, balancing his aspirations as orator and writer against the practicalities of deadlines, finances, and audiences.

Like Goethe, Ralph Waldo Emerson wanted to be the cultural historian and interpreter of his age—its business, politics, discoveries. The journals and notebooks included in this volume and covering in depth the years 1848 to 1851 reflect Emerson’s preoccupations with the events of these often turbulent years in America.

On his return to Concord from his successful lecture trip to England and visit to Paris in 1847–1848, Emerson resumed his familiar life of writer, thinker, and lecturer. Impressions of his recent European travels appear in passages in this volume which are used later in English Traits (1856). He writes of technological and scientific discoveries in America and abroad—one of which, the discovery of ether, was to involve his brother-in-law in legal embroilment. He ponders the meaning, for “the age” or “the times,” of reports on the Dew textile mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts, of faster steamers daily breaking records, of new geological and paleontological findings, of theories of race, and many other matters that were coming increasingly to the fore in the mid-nineteenth century. Many passages on these topics, used first in lectures, later appear in his essays “Fate,” “Wealth,” and “Power” in Conduct of Life (1860). He was also adding to his critical biographies for Representative Men (1850), with special attention to Swedenborg, always a source of particular interest for Emerson.

Between 1850 and 1853, Emerson traveled farther west to lecture than he had hitherto ventured—to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and many other cities in the midwest. One notebook in the present volume records his customary percipient observations of places and people encountered during these western trips.

The tragic drowning of Margaret Fuller Ossoli and her family on her return from Italy in 1850 prompted Emerson to consider a collaboration on her life and writings, and another notebook printed here contains her memorabilia, including original entries by Emerson. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli by Emerson, William Henry Charming, and James Freeman Clarke, was published in 1852.

Passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 brought to a boil something in Emerson that had long been simmering. Concerned with slavery, freedom, and the future of the black population in America more than his public record had shown, he now delivered himself of an outburst—pained, vitriolic, ironic—a more sustained response to a single issue than appears elsewhere in all his journals. In this latest move in a compounding national tragedy he could see only chicanery and deterioration, the crumbling of America’s moral fiber. He saw the Fugitive Slave Law in a larger context of a sick age; like Tennyson and Arnold in England, he lamented in moods of spite and chagrin the loss of faith and of an old world where political men of honor stood firm for the moral law. Most of his journal outburst went into his addresses “The Fugitive Slave Law,” 1851 and 1854.

Emerson's journals of 1847-1848 deal primarily with his second visit to Europe, occasioned by a British lecture tour that began at Manchester and Liverpool in November of 1847, took him to Scotland in the following February, and concluded in London during June after he had spent a month as a sightseer in Paris. The journals of these years, along with associated notebooks and letters, recorded the materials for lectures that Emerson composed while abroad, for additional lectures on England and the English that he wrote shortly after his return to Concord, and ultimately, for English Traits, the book growing out of his travels that he was to publish in 1856.

Travel abroad provided a needed change for Emerson in 1847 as it had done on previous occasions, though with his usual discounting of the values of mere change of place he was slow in deciding to make the trip. Discouragement with the prevailing political climate at the time of the Mexican War and the old uncertainty about his own proper role in the "Lilliput" of American society were much on his mind as the year began. In March he thought of withdrawing temporarily "from all domestic & accustomed relations"--preferably to enjoy "an absolute leisure with books," though he also recognized the want of some "stated task" to stimulate his flagging vitality; in July he finally agreed to accept a long-standing invitation to visit England as a lecturer. As matters turned out, a full schedule of lectures and travel, unexpectedly heavy social engagements along the way, and proliferating correspondence left Emerson little time for reading but did not prevent him from filling his journals with sharp observations on the passing scene.

As Emerson moved about England his acknowledged admiration for the English rose every day, though he was careful to distinguish their less admirable qualities.

The Englishman's "stuff or substance seems to be the best of the world," he told Margaret Fuller. "I forgive him all his pride. My respect is the more generous that I have no sympathy with him, only an admiration." He took a wry amusement from the new experience of being lionized by his hosts. In his journals are lively portraits of those who entertained him, such as Richard Monckton Milnes, his particular sponsor in the society of London and Paris, and sketches of literary notables including Rogers, Dc Quincey, Wilson, Tennyson, and Dickens. He renewed acquaintance with Wordsworth and recorded in detail the pronouncements of his old friend Carlyle. Settling in London in March and April of 1848, he divided his time between work at his desk, visits to nearby points of interest, and the mixed pleasures of a busy social life. In May he went to France just as an abortive uprising against the new provisional government was brewing. Four weeks in Paris served to correct his old "prejudice" against the French, who on closer acquaintance rose in his estimation just as the English had done. In June he returned to London to lecture, and in July, after visiting Stonehenge with Carlyle, he sailed home. As the journals reveal, he reached Concord refreshed and renewed by the change of scene, the new acquaintance, and the generous reception that the trip had brought him, and with an enlarged perspective that revealed to him once again the "proper glory" of his own country.

The pages of these five journals covering the years 1843 to 1847 are filled with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s struggle to formulate the true attitude of the scholar to the vexing question of public involvement. Pulled between his belief that a disinterested independence was a requisite for the writer and the public demands heaped upon him as a leading intellectual figure, he notes to himself that he “pounds…tediously” on the “exemption of the writer from all secular works.”

Although Emerson concluded his editorship of The Dial in 1844, he was continually beset by calls for public service, most of which drew their impetus from the reformist syndrome of the 1840s. In response to such issues as the Temperance Movement, the utopian communities, and Henry Thoreau’s experiment in self-reliance at Walden Pond, Emerson exercised sympathetic skepticism and held a growing conviction that the society of the day was not the lost cause many of his contemporaries believed it to be.

These journals record Emerson’s optimistic attitudes and show how later they existed side-by-side with concerns that, under the impulse of abolition, Texas, and the Mexican War, led him to some bitter conclusions about the state of the nation. Thoreau’s refusal to pay his poll tax in demonstration against slavery and the war particularly horrified him, and he confides in his journal that Thoreau’s action diverted attention from the possibility of real reform.

The moral ambivalence and cynicism of the day strengthened Emerson’s belief that the self-reliant individual was the only answer. These individuals—men like Garrison, Phillips, and Carlyle—were, in Emerson’s estimation, destined to set the standards by which society would be judged. Encouraged by the prospective publication of his first volume of poetry in 1846, Emerson also spent much of this period composing verse. Among the poems in these journals are “Uriel,” “Merlin,” “Ode to Beauty,” and a section from “Initial, Daemonic, and Celestial Love.”

In anticipation of his second visit to Europe, Emerson began preparing a lecture series on “Mind and Manners of the Nineteenth Century.” In these lectures he would take to the Old World his observations on the complexities of the times.

When Ralph Waldo Emerson began these journals in June of 1838, he “had achieved initial success in each of his main forms of public utterance. The days of finding his proper role and public voice were now behind him…and his…personal life had healed from earlier wounds.” Now he was married to Lydia Jackson of Plymouth and was the father of a young son, Waldo. They lived in a large, comfortable house in Concord, only a half-day’s drive from Boston but close to the solitude of nature. Still to come was the controversy he would create by his address to the graduating class at Harvard Divinity School, an address in which he would say that the Divinity School trained ministers for a dead church. These journals record his responses to the severe criticism and trace his struggles as he overcame the stings of attack with a growing confidence in himself as a thinker, lecturer, and writer.

In addition to introspective writings, the journals contain Emerson’s observations on his reading, on his country, especially during the presidential campaign of 1840, on slavery, on art and nature, on religion and the need for a new understanding of its meaning, and on love. His relations with such close friends as Bronson Alcott and Margaret Fuller also are reflected here, as are his developing friendships with Thoreau, Jones Very, Samuel Ward, Caroline Sturgis, and William Ellery Channing, the poet.

During this period he gave three series of lectures and published his second book, Essays, which contains some of his greatest work: “Self Reliance,” “Compensation,” and “The Over-Soul.” The major workshop for Essays, these journals are indispensable for the study of Emerson’s creative processes. Many entries are published here for the first time, including experimental lists of topics for Essays and possibly the earliest draft of the poem “The Sphinx.”

For Emerson, the journal was one of the most important of literary genres. His own journals not only formed his “artificial memory,” but became “a living part of him.” He later wrote, “The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.”

Volume VI in this series contains quotation books and miscellaneous notebooks that Ralph Waldo Emerson kept between 1824 and 1838, and to which he added occasionally as late as the 1860s. With some attempt at a systematic listing, but more often at random, he set down an enormous variety of entries from Burke, Montaigne, Madame de Staël, Bacon, Plutarch, Jeremy Taylor, and a host of other writers both famous and obscure, with frequent comments of his own.

One book contains Emerson’s lengthy translations of Goethe, while another is devoted to his brother Charles, who died in 1836, and includes, among other items, excerpts from Charles’s letters to his fiancée. A third contains an interview with a survivor of the battle of Concord and household accounts from the fall and winter of 1835, just after Emerson’s marriage to Lydia Jackson.

Frequent annotations show that Emerson referred to several of these books in composing the sermons he began to give late in 1826, and that many of the entries found their way into his public lectures, into Nature, and into Essays: First Series. These pages are a fascinating indication of the sources on which Emerson drew steadily in his writing and thinking, and reflect clearly, although indirectly, his own characteristic philosophy.

The journals of 1835–1838, perhaps the richest Ralph Waldo Emerson had yet written, cover the pivotal years when he brought to Concord his second wife, Lydia Jackson of Plymouth, published Nature (1836), and wrote “The American Scholar” (1837) and the Divinity School Address (1838). As he turned from the pulpit to the lecture platform in the 1830’s, the journals became more and more repository for the substance of future lectures; his annual winter series, particularly those dealing with The Philosophy of History, in 1836–1837, and Human Culture, in 1837–1838, were drawn largely from materials contained in this volume.

Along with lecture material, the journals of these years include Emerson’s notes on his extensive reading, expressions of his griefs and joys, and his perennial reflections on man and his relation to nature and the divine. The birth of his son Waldo in October of 1836 compensated perhaps for the death of his beloved brother Charles the previous May. New friendships with Margaret Fuller, Henry Thoreau, and especially Bronson Alcott (whom Emerson called “the highest genius of the time”) replaced to a degree the close intellectual companionship he had enjoyed with Charles.

Printed here for the first time are the complete texts of these journals. They reveal the continuity of Emerson’s development and add to the understanding both of his thought and of his methods of literary composition.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s decision to quit the ministry, arrived at painfully during the summer and fall of 1832, was accompanied by illness so severe that he was forced to give up any immediate thought of a new career. Instead, in December, he embarked on a tour of Europe that was to take him to Italy, France, Scotland, and England. Within a year after his return in the fall in 1833, his health largely restored, he went to live in the town of Concord, his home from then on.

The record of Emerson’s ten months in Europe which makes up a large part of this book is unusually detailed and personal, actually a diary recording what Emerson saw and did as well as what he thought. He describes cities, scenes, and buildings that he found striking in one way or another and he gives impressions of the people he met. During his travels he made the acquaintance of Landor, of Lafayette, and of Carlyle, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, all of whom stimulated him. In Paris he was so much stirred by a visit to the Jardin des Plantes that he determined “to become a naturalist.”

On his return to America, still without a profession, he reverted in his journals to the more impersonal form they had taken in his days as a minister, focusing on his inner experiences rather than on external events. Notes start dotting the pages once again, this time not so much for future sermons—although for years he did a certain amount of occasional preaching as for the addresses of the public lecturer he would soon become.

Through the thirty-four months covered by this volume, the journals continue to he the advancing record of Emerson’s mind, demonstrating a growing maturity and firmness of style by compression and aphorism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s life from 1826 to 1832 has a classic dramatic structure, beginning with his approbation to preach in October 1826, continuing with his courtship, his brief marriage to Ellen Tucker, and his misery after her death, and concluding with his departure from the ministry.

The journals and notebooks of these years are far fewer than those in the preceding six years. Emerson noted down many ideas for sermons in his journals, but as time went on he wrote the sermons independently. Occasionally he wrote openly about family matters, but except for the passionate response to Ellen and her death the journals tell little about the impact upon him of other people and outside events. The pattern is consistent with the earlier journals: Emerson used them mainly to record his thought, to develop and express his ideas. His religious and intellectual interests were undergoing significant changes in orientation or emphasis. He was less concerned with the existence of God than with the nature and influence of Christ. He continued to reassert the truth of Christianity, but in his growing unorthodoxy he came to show less and less sympathy with the church, with forms and ritual, with convention. And he began to wonder whether it is not the worst part of the man that is the minister.

During these years, Emerson read more in Madame de Staël, Wordsworth, Gérando, and Coleridge, less in Milton, the Augustans, Dugald Stewart, and Scott. In style, he moved from a rambling, bookish rhetoric to the tautness and the cadences that mark his later Essays.