Here is the essential collection of Emerson’s spiritual thought for those readers who understand the transformative quality of ideas. It is concise and suited to years of rereading and contemplation, offering the essays that trace the arc of the inner message brought by America’s ” features many of Emerson’s landmark works. Yet also included are overlooked classics, such as the essays “Fate” and “Success,” which served as major sources of inspiration to some of the leading American metaphysical thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The introduction by religious scholar and philosopher Jacob Needleman frames—historically and philosophically—the development of Emerson’s thought and explores why it has such a powerful hold on us today.