Spring Auction 2018
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/26/2018
This is an interesting receipt for $45 for payment for work done in the Atlantic Monthy by Phillips, Sampson and Co. The magazine was first published by Phillips, Sampson and Company on November 1, 1857. Phillips, Sampson and Company was a very well known publishing firm, led by Moses Dresser Phillips, and The Atlantic Monthly's successful launch in the midst of the Panic of 1857 was due in no small part to the firm's established name, Phillips, Sampson and Company's recruitment of popular contributors, and Moses Dresser Phillips's marketing and distribution efforts. The other founding sponsors were prominent writers, including: Ralph Waldo Emerson; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Harriet Beecher Stowe; John Greenleaf Whittier; and James Russell Lowell, who served as its first editor. The first issue was November of 1857 and contained 4 poems by Emerson. Then in the December issue of 1857 Emerson wrote one of his most famous essays 'Society and Solitude'. Emerson later published a collection of essays with the same name. In this essay, the author discusses the notions of society, or association with other people, and solitude, or being alone. He praises the virtues of solitude, suggesting that private contemplation leads to enlightenment. The essay is representative of the Transcendentalist movement, a nineteenth-century intellectual movement in the United States, since it emphasizes the importance of self-reliance and intuition or feeling.This payment receipt is dated February of 1858 and is for work done in the Atlantic Monthly. There is a very good chance that this is the actual payment for his famous essay 'Society and Solitude', since that was the last piece before this payment he had written for the magazine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Emerson possibly gets paid for 'Society and Solitude'
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