Emerson , Ralph Waldo , 1803-1882 , American essayist and poet

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston on 25 May 1803. Emerson was educated at Boston Latin School, 1812-1817 and at Harvard College, 1821-1825. In 1822 he published his first article in The Christian Disciple. Emerson was admitted to Harvard Divinity School in 1825 and was ordained minister of a Unitarian Church in Boston in 1829, where he remained until October 1832.

On resigning his only pastoral post, because of doctrinal disputes, Emerson embarked upon the first of three trips to Europe in December 1832, during which time meetings with other writers developed his notions of the transcendent. On returning to the United States in 1834, Emerson settled in Concord, Massachusetts, which became a centre of Transcendentalism. The following year Emerson published Nature, which stated the movement's main principles. Throughout his life Emerson lectured and wrote on philosophy, literature, slavery and religion. Emerson died in Concord, age 78, on 27 April 1882