This short work is a collection of four essays by nineteenth-century author and transcendentalist Samson Reed. "A Dissertation:? On the Evidence from the Light of Nature of a Future Retribution" is a religious treatise that laid the groundwork for his aesthetic theory; the "Oration on Genius" is a vibrant speech which is probably America's earliest Romantic manifesto; "Observations on the Growth of the Mind" reflects the aesthetic theory embraced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the New England transcendentalists; and Reed's preface to the 1838 edition of "Observations," which showed his growing disenchantment with the transcendentalist movement he helped to inspire. Edited by George F. Dole, the collection contains a preface by Sylvia Montgomery Shaw giving the historical context to these writings.