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Ralph Waldo Emerson for Everyone

James Marcus has written a companionable biography, meaning he always seems right next to the reader, explaining his approach as he goes along and places himself in relation to his subject.

Mathew B. Brady; Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons
Ralph Waldo Emerson, detail, around 1856. Mathew B. Brady; Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons
CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

‘Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson’
By James Marcus
Princeton University Press, 344 pages

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CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington, Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Criterion, and other publications.

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