Stephen Emerson Whicher dedicated his career to exploring the development of Ralph Waldo Emerson's thought, and his 1953 biography of Emerson remains an important resource. Whicher was born on 16 June 1915, in New York City. His father, George F. Whicher, was a professor at Amherst College and an eminent Emily Dickinson scholar; his mother, Harriet Fox Whicher, was a professor at Mount Holyoke College. Whicher attended Phillips Exeter Academy and then Amherst College. As a college student he participated in swimming and soccer and won a dozen prizes for scholarship, work in English and the classics, and public speaking. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude from Amherst in 1936. The next year he received his M.A. in philosophy from Columbia University. Whicher married in 1940. He and his wife, Elizabeth, were to have four children: Susan, Nancy, Stephen, and John. Pursuing further graduate studies in...