Ralph Waldo Emerson

Born in 1803 in Boston, Emerson was the second oldest of eight children.
Enrolled at Harvard at the age of 14, he graduated four years
later halfway down in his class. After some time as a schoolteacher, he
attended Divinity College at Harvard, became a Unitarian pastor, and
married, only to see his wife Ellen die of tuberculosis. After resigning
his post because of doctrinal disputes, Emerson traveled to Europe and
met Carlyle, Coleridge, and Wordsworth.
Returning to America in 1835, he settled in Concord and married
again, to Lydia Jackson, with whom he had five children. In 1836 he
published Nature, which set down transcendentalist principles; other
transcendentalists included Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson
Alcott, Elizabeth Peabody, and Jones Very. In the following two years
Emerson delivered controversial addresses at Harvard, the first asserting
American intellectual independence from Europe, the second
attracting the wrath of the religious establishment in its plea for independence
of belief above all creeds and churches.
In 1841 and 1844 two series of essays were published, including
"Self-Reliance," "Spiritual Laws," "Compensation and Experience"
and, in the decade 1850–60, "Representative Men," "English Traits,"
and "The Conduct of Life." Emerson stopped writing and lecturing ten
years before his death in 1882.