2023 Reprint of the Selected Essays of Emerson. Included are seven of Emerson's enduring essays: Self-Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Law, The Over-Soul, Circles, Fate and Success. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and his ideology was disseminated through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.