Jones Very (28 August 1813-8 May 1880), Transcendentalist poet and friend of Emerson and Hawthorne, is today best known for his intensely pious religious sonnets describing the nature of the "will-less existence" which he attempted to live and popularize in the late 1830s. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to a long line of seafarers, his father a ship's captain; but his early inclination proved to be intellectual. He entered Harvard as a sophomore in 1834, and quickly distinguished himself there as an essayist and classical scholar, winning the coveted Bowdoin Prize for his essays two consecutive years. The second of these, an essay on Epic Poetry, came to the attention of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, who in turn brought it to the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1838. Thus began a close but at times turbulent friendship between the two men, with Emerson pushing Very toward a more professional literary career...