M & S Rare Books

Document Information
Our descriptions are copyrighted, and may not be reproduced without permission. (title 17, U. S. Code).

Unpublisehd Biographical Material on Emerson

 

(EMERSON, RALPH WALDO). ESTES, J. WORTH. Unpublished Partial Biography of Ralph W. Emerson. By J. Worth Estes, M.D. Ca. 1950-1960. Hard bound typescript. 8 x 11", 166 pp. Contains introduction, chapter 6, 8, 10-13, book 2 chapter 1, 3, 4, 9. Some wormholes at edges, clear typescript with few corrections. $1,250.00

 

    This unpublished work of biographical scholarship was written by Dr. Joseph Worth Estes,  a physician and a longtime professor of pharmacology at the Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Estes was born May 10, 1934, in Lexington, Kentucky, and died Oct. 22, 2000, in Stoughton, Massachusetts. He was the husband of Cynthia Waggoner Estes (1930 - 2011).

     Estes completed his high school education at Phillips Exeter Academy (1951), and majored in biology at Harvard as a member of the Class of 1955. While at Harvard, Worth lived with Paul White note: Paul Dudley White: "The Father of American Cardiology") and his wife, and tutored their children. Before getting his M.D. from Boston University's School of Medicine (1964), he worked as a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital, and earned the M.A. in pharmacology at Boston University. After medical school, he had an internship in pathology at Massachusetts General, which was followed by training in hematology, and a postdoctoral fellowship in hematology in London.

     Primarily a medical historian, this work is a slight departure in topic for Estes. It is possible he wrote it while a student at Harvard. The introduction states: "In writing of the life, thought and influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson it will be necessary to examine somewhat into the lives of his forebears and his contemporaries; also into the conditions of civilization which extended behind him in New England..."

     Chapter six which is the first in this typescript, examines the Channing brothers, Edward Tyrrel and William Ellery Channing) and their influence on Emerson while at Harvard. Chaper eight includes his first position as clergy and his romance and marriage to Ellen Walker including her untimely death at age twenty.

     Chapter ten takes up Emerson's life around 1832, including his travels to Conway, New Hampshire, and includes quotes from Emerson's personal journals. Chapter eleven covers time in France and Italy, and in Chapter twelve Estes writes about Emerson's visits to the Jardin des Plantes and Emerson's ideas on evolution pre Darwin. Chapter Thirteen includes a visit to Coleridge and Wordsworth in London.

     Book 2 "is the beginning of the second important epoch...hitherto he had written and delivered sermons...the lectures which he had given on his return from Europe...are not in Emerson's true vein...this was not his stuff and he well knew it." Chapter three begins after the death of Emerson's brother Charles and includes comment on Emerson's essays and his book Nature, to 1836. Chapter four covers his life in Concord with mentions of Bronson Alcott, Elizabeth Peabody, and the topics of his lectures. Chapter nine includes observations on his life and philosophy up to his second visit to England.

     The reach of Estes's curiosity was impressive, and his bibliography is massive. His work ranges from medical articles on hematology and pharmacology, to important historical papers on purple foxglove and William Withering, medicine in ancient Egypt, naval medicine. Shaker medicine, opium, quantitative observations of fever, and dozens of other subjects.

     Estes's first important historical book to be published was Hall Jackson and the Purple Foxglove (1979), followed by The Changing Humors of Portsmouth: The Medical Biography of an American Town, (1986); Dictionary of Protopharmacology (1990); The Medical Skills of Ancient Egypt (1993); Naval Surgeon: Life and Death at Sea in the Age of Sail (1998); and A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales (1997). [ref: American Antiquarian Society].