SOURCE: Tuttleton, James W. “The Discord at Concord.” Wall Street Journal (4 April 1996): A12.

In the following positive review, Tuttleton asserts that Emerson Among the Eccentrics “is a massive, readable, at times witty, always erudite biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

At his death in 1987, Princeton Prof. Carlos Baker had virtually completed Emerson Among the Eccentrics. Luckily for us, the manuscript has now been rescued and published (with a graceful introduction by James R. Mellow).

This book is a massive, readable, at times witty, always erudite biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), one of America's most distinguished writers and intellectuals. Equally as important to Baker, though, are the friends and relatives who could be found, at one time or another, in Emerson's orbit.

Baker's account begins with Emerson at 27, about to launch his great career as thinker, poet, essayist and lecturer. He had been trained for the Unitarian ministry but...