Foreword / Jacob Needleman -- Introduction / Mehdi Aminrazavi -- The English Romantic Background: 1. English Romantics and Persian Sufi Poets: A Wellspring of Inspiration for American Transcendentalists / Leonard Lewisohn -- The Master: Emerson and Sufism: 2. The Chronological Development of Emerson's Interest in Persian Mysticism / Mansur Ekhtiyar -- 3. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Muslim Orient / Marwan M. Obediat -- 4. Emerson and Aspects of Sa'di's Reception in 19thNineteenth Century America / Parvin Loloi -- 5. Emerson on Hafiz and Sa'di: The Narrative of Love and Wine / Farhang Jahanpour -- The Disciple: Walt Whitman: 6. Whitman and Hafiz: Expressions of Universal Love and Tolerance / Mahnaz Ahmad -- 7. Walt Whitman and Sufism: Towards a Persian Lesson / Massud Farzan -- The Initiates: Other American Authors: 8. Literary 'Masters' in the Literature of Thomas Lake Harris, Lawrence Oliphant, and Paschal Beverly Randolph / Arthur Versluis -- 9. American Transcendentalists' Interpretations of Sufism: Thoreau, Whitman, Longfellow, Lowell, Melville, and Lafcadio Hearn / John D. Yohannan -- 10. The Persians of Concord / Phillip N. Edmondson -- 11. Omarian Poets of America / Mehdi Aminrazavi -- 12. 'Bond Slave to FitzGerald's Omar': Mark Twain and the Ruba'iyat / Alan Gribben -- 13. Mark Twain's Ruba'iyat: AGE -- A -- Contributors' Biographies -- Bibliography -- Glossary -- Index.