Three Roads Back

The late Robert D. Richardson Jr.’s final book, Three Roads Back (Princeton University Press, 2023) explores how Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James each coped with the grief of losing loved ones. The foreword was written by Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.

From the publisher: “Filled with rich biographical detail and unforgettable passages from the journals and letters of Emerson, Thoreau, and James, these vivid and moving stories of loss and hard-fought resilience show how the writers’ responses to these deaths helped spur them on to their greatest work, influencing the birth and course of American literature and philosophy.”

Wall Street Journal reviewer Christoph Irmscher writes “…Three Roads Back is Richardson’s legacy condensed, his grace note to posterity, the massive effort behind his three great books — Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind (1986); Emerson: The Mind on Fire (1996); and William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (2006) — refracted in the shimmering prism of a hundred pages of perfectly polished prose.”

Washington Post reviewer Diane Cole commented “Richardson…narrates each ordeal with sympathy and compassion. His portrayal of their journeys from raw vulnerability to the reawakening to life’s possibilities invites us inside their souls, and speaks to our own.”

This gem of a book, along with many others by and about Emerson, is available for purchase at the Ralph Waldo Emerson House in Concord.