A classic that finally places Jean Toomer in the company of Emerson, Gilbran, Rumi, and Thoreau. Essentials embodies Toomer's attempt to grapple with the deepest mysteries of the human experience. Long lost to readers . . .
Essentials is essential reading.
This edition of Essentials is the first trade edition of the book. Presented in a compact format, it is full of insight as relevant to today's confusing and contradictory lives as when it was first written. Privately published by Jean Toomer in 1931, Essentials is a timely, timeless collection of aphorisms by the acclaimed author of Cane, one of the most important books of the 20th century. Toomer reflects on topics ranging from the spiritual dangers of industrial society to the failures of modern religious and educational institutions. At the time he produced these maxims, Toomer was engrossed in study with Russian mystic and psychologist G.I. Gurdjieff, who devised a complex blending of Eastern religion and modern psychology.