Both during his lifetime and since his death, Emerson's reputation and influence have been enormous. Unlike his contemporary and friend Thoreau, Emerson was acknowledged during his own time as a major thinker and author and as the central proponent of Transcendental philosophy. Because Emerson's efforts straddled a number of disciplines — among them literature, philosophy, theology, psychology, education, and social commentary — critics and scholars have been anything but unified in assessing the nature of his most important contributions to American thought and letters. Emerson's writings are so encompassing that they have permitted a wide variety of approaches to their study and understanding. To a large degree, particular reviewers and scholars have expressed the concerns of their own major areas of interest in examining Emerson's work. But if Emerson's importance has been widely recognized, few commentators have accepted all aspects of his work as valid, and some — even those who admit his tremendous appeal — have denied that he was a great writer of prose or poetry. Nevertheless, the vast body of literature about Emerson attests to his influence.
The first monographic treatment of Emerson, George Searle Phillips' Emerson, His Life and Writings ("by January Searle") was published in London in 1855, more than twenty-five years before its subject's death. The first biography of Emerson, George Willis Cooke's Ralph Waldo Emerson, appeared in 1881. Cooke also prepared the first separate bibliography of Emerson's writings (A Bibliography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in 1908). Reviews of Emerson's writings, articles about him, bibliographies of his work and of secondary sources, biographies, specialized discussions of aspects of his thought, and critical articles and books number in the thousands. Moreover, Emerson is considered in every history of American literature and overall treatment of New England Transcendentalism. It is consequently difficult to discuss Emerson's reputation and influence briefly, except in the most general terms.
