Essayist, philosopher, poet, and preacher, Emerson is best known as the outstanding spokesman for Transcendentalism. A former Unitarian minister, Emerson believed in: the spiritual nature of reality, an Over-Soul or unifying spirit, self-reliance, and instinct and conscience. His book Nature (1836) was the first of many developing these ideas. Emerson lectured widely in the U.S. and Europe where he befriended Thomas Carlyle and other scholars.
