During his lifetime, George Ripley was many things: minister, philosopher, leader of a commune, writer and editor, literary critic. In some ways he represented the modern man, a product of the Enlightenment. Like many seventeenth-and eighteenth-century philosophers before him, Ripley believed in the rationality of man and was sure mankind would achieve an understanding of the universe through God-given intellect and revelation. Best known as one of the chief spokesmen of the transcendental movement during the nineteenth century, Ripley also became one of America's foremost literary critics. He also helped found and edit the Dial, the monthly organ of the transcendental movement, and the most noteworthy socialist newspaper of the period, the Harbinger. In addition, Ripley edited what was generally considered to be the best encyclopedia in the United States at that time.

Ripley was born on 3 October 1802, in Greenfield, Massachusetts, to Jerome and Sarah Franklin Ripley. In...