With Selected journals 1841-1877 and its companion volume Selected journals 1820-1842, the Library of America presents the most ample and comprehensive nonspecialist edition of Emerson's work ever published--one that retains the original order in which he composed his thoughts and preserves the range of his style in long, uninterrupted passages, but without the daunting critical apparatus of the 16-volume scholarly edition. Selected journals 1841-1877 opens with Emerson at his height and in the midst of a vibrant intellectual circle. It follows his reactions to the nation's intensifying political turmoil--anger at the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, his antislavery activism, his day-to-day experience of the Civil War. He laments the losses of his first-born son Waldo at the age of five and friends Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller. By the end of his life, Emerson is a revered national figure; the volume includes his final journal writings--Adapted from book jacket.