The Atlantic Monthly: Volume 1 (1857-58)

The Atlantic Monthly, November 1857, Volume 1, issue 1. “Brahma,” poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson (without attribution) on p 48. The first issue is included in this entire first volume, which is bound in hardcover. Fair black cover with heavily worn leather on spine and board corners. Good interior with occasional stains, wrinkles, and creases on tanned pages.

In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda mentions or quotes Emerson nine times. For the very first issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Emerson wrote a poem titled “Brahma.” As related by Sri Yogananda in a footnote, “most of the readers were bewildered. Emerson chuckled. ‘Tell them,’ he said, ‘to say “Jehovah” instead of “Brahma” and they will not feel any perplexity.'”