The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson is another addition to the fine series produced by the Cambridge University Press under the rubric “Cambridge Companions to Literature.” This volume, edited by Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, follows a well tried and tested formula. A listing of contributors is followed by a preface, a helpful chronology of Emerson’s Life, and an extensive introduction by Joel Porte. There is in addition a selected bibliography and a detailed index.

As the editors point out in their preface “after an initial period of hagiographic veneration, followed by a backlash of reaction, Emerson and his...