Volume I, Nature, Addresses and Lectures, contains Emerson's first published work, Nature, originally published anonymously in 1836 as a ninety-five page volume. At the time it was considered "one of most startlingly new notes, all circumstances considered, ever to be struck in American literature." The little book did not sell well, but it drew great interest to Emerson and helped to launch his career as a lecturer.

The rest of the volume contains important work, including "The American Scholar," delivered at Harvard in 1837, and the great "Divinity School Address," which was so controversial that Emerson was not invited back to speak at Harvard for thirty years.