Collection on the Emerson-Browning Club

The Emerson-Browning Club was "a group of educated citizens dedicated to the religious and literary values which, in their day at least, the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Robert Browning represented*."

The club was founded by Charles Malloy, a self-made expert on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Robert Browning. He was born in 1823 in Limerick, Maine, and worked for many years as a shoe salesman in New Hampshire. During that time, he began studying the... works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and soon became a recognized authority on the writer. He moved to Waltham in the 1880s, where he continued working in the shoe business and studying the writings of Emerson and Browning. Malloy was the first president of the Boston Emerson Society, and spoke regularly at the Concord School of Philosopy and the Greenacre Summer Lectures. He was considered one of the best interpreters of Emerson's prose and poetry, and an authority on the works of Browning. He died in Waltham on November 11, 1914.

The bulk of this collection contains lectures given to the Emerson-Browning Club by Edward D. Emerson (no known relation to Ralph Waldo Emerson). Edward D. Emerson was born in Alfred, Maine, in 1840. He moved to Waltham in 1882 and settled on River Street. He was very interested in philosopy, literature, and politics, and served as an alderman-at-large in Waltham's Ward 3. He died in Cambridge, Mass. on April 14, 1919.

-- *Cameron, Kenneth Walter. "THe Emerson-Browning Club of Waltham and Charles Malloy." American Renaissance Literary Report, volume 4, 1990.