The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson [WITH:] Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson 1820-1872 [LIMITED EDITION - COMPLETE IN 22 VOLUMES]

Cambridge / Boston: Printed at The Riverside Press / Houghton, Mifflin and Co, 1903. The Autograph Centenary Edition. Hardcover. Nearly Fine. 507/600. 22 volumes, octavo (22 by 15 cm), published between 1903 and 1914. Half-titles and volume titles in red and black; gravure frontispieces and occasional illustrations throughout on India paper, mounted; top edge gilt, other edges uncut as issued; silk ribbon markers. Sheet of Emerson's autograph manuscript inset in leaf following half-title of the first volume. Uniformly bound at the Riverside Press in three-quarter brown crushed morocco over marbled boards, with matching endleaves. Edition limited to 600 copies, numbered by hand at the limitation page (and signed for the publisher in the first volume), this being set no. 507. Spines lightly sunned, a few with light rubbing; 3 volumes with slight chips at spine caps; paper boards with occasional scuffs, else a fine set.

Autograph Centenary Edition (Works); Large Paper Copy (Journals), with all of Emerson's poems, lectures, biographical sketches, letters and essays, some published here for the first time. The inset manuscript contains sixteen lines of text in black ink on blue paper, with corrections. The opening line, "The English are not particularly desirous that foreign nations should be ably represented at their court..." suggests the sort of observation one might find in Emerson's English Traits (1856). References: BAL 5314 (Works); Grolier, American 100, 47. (Inventory #: 54798)