Society and solitude: Twelve chapters

About the book

Emerson begins with the tension named in the title: the need for company and the need to withdraw are both real, and neither offers a complete rule for living. The following essays turn towards civilization, art, eloquence, domestic life, farming, books, courage, success, and age. Anecdotes and abrupt observations give the prose its characteristic movement, allowing an abstract claim to meet a practical example before either can settle into a formula. Reading becomes one activity among the many ways a person exchanges energy with the world. The collection rewards pauses between its assertions, especially where confidence and qualification stand close together. Its continuing question is how to cultivate one's powers without confusing independence with isolation or social usefulness with mere conformity.

• Independence and community
• Work and culture
• Practical philosophy

Why read it

For essays that bring large claims about individual life into contact with ordinary occupations, friendships, and habits of reading.

Twelve essays · English text