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{{Short description|American philosopher (1817–1862)}}
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{{Infobox Philosopher
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{{Infobox philosopher
|region = Western Philosophy
|era = ] |region = ]
|era = ]
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|image_name = Henry David Thoreau.jpg |image = Benjamin D. Maxham - Henry David Thoreau - Restored - greyscale - straightened.jpg
|caption = Thoreau in 1856
|image_caption = Maxham ] of Henry David Thoreau made in 1856.
|name = Henry David Thoreau |name = Henry David Thoreau
|birth_name = David Henry Thoreau
|birth_date = {{birth date|1817|07|12}}
|birth_date = {{birth date|1817|07|12}}
|birth_place = ], ]
|birth_place = ], U.S.
|death_date = {{death date and age|1862|05|06|1817|07|12}}
|death_date = {{death date and age|1862|05|06|1817|07|12}}
|death_place = Concord, Massachusetts
|death_place = Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.
|school_tradition = ]
|signature = Henry D Thoreau signature.svg
|main_interests = ]
|school_tradition = ]<ref name=":6"/>
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|main_interests = {{hlist|Ethics|poetry|religion|politics|]|philosophy|history}}
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{{Libertarianism US|intellectuals}}
'''Henry David Thoreau''' (born '''David Henry Thoreau'''; July 12, 1817{{ndash}} May 6, 1862)<ref>, American Poems (2000-2007 Gunnar Bengtsson).</ref> was an ] author, ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and leading ]. He is best known for his book '']'', a reflection upon ] in natural surroundings, and his essay, '']'', an argument for individual ] in moral opposition to an unjust state.
{{Anarchism US}}
'''Henry David Thoreau''' (July 12, 1817{{snd}}May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher.<ref>{{cite web |title=Henry David Thoreau {{!}} Biography & Works |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-David-Thoreau |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |language=en |access-date=July 8, 2019 |archive-date=March 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190316155013/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-David-Thoreau |url-status=live }}</ref> A leading ],<ref>Howe, Daniel Walker, ''What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848''. {{ISBN|978-0-19-507894-7}}, p. 623.</ref> he is best known for his book '']'', a reflection upon ] in natural surroundings, and his essay "]" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state.


Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his ] and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ] and ], two sources of modern day ]. His ] style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, ] meanings, and historical lore; while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical ], and "Yankee" love of practical detail.<ref name="ReferenceA">''Henry David Thoreau : A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers / Walden / The Maine Woods / Cape Cod'', by Henry David Thoreau, Library of America, ISBN 0940450275 </ref> He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time imploring one to abandon waste and ] in order to discover life's true essential needs.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his ] and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and ], two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His ] style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, ]ic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical ], and attention to practical detail.<ref name="ReferenceA">Thoreau, Henry David. ''A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers''&nbsp;/ ''Walden''&nbsp;/ ''The Maine Woods''&nbsp;/ ''Cape Cod''. Library of America. {{ISBN|0-940450-27-5}}.</ref> He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and ] in order to discover life's true essential needs.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>


He was a lifelong ], delivering lectures that attacked the ] while praising the writings of ] and defending abolitionist ]. Thoreau’s philosophy of ] influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as ], ], and ] Thoreau was a lifelong ], delivering lectures that attacked the ] while praising the writings of ] and defending the abolitionist ]. Thoreau's philosophy of ] later influenced the political thoughts and actions of notable figures such as ], ], and ]<ref name=":2"/>


Thoreau is sometimes referred to retrospectively as an ],<ref>Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson; Johnson, Alvin Saunders, eds. (1937). ''Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences'', p. 12.</ref><ref>Gross, David, ed. ''The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals''. p. 8. {{ISBN|978-1-4348-0552-2}}. "The Thoreau of these journals distrusted doctrine, and, though it is accurate I think to call him an anarchist, he was by no means doctrinaire in this either."</ref> but may perhaps be more properly regarded as a '']''. In his seminal essay, "Civil Disobedience", Thoreau wrote as follows:
Thoreau is sometimes cited as an ].<ref>''Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences'', edited by Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, Alvin Saunders Johnson, 1937, p. 12.</ref> Though ''Civil Disobedience'' calls for improving rather than abolishing government{{ndash}} "I ask for, not at once no government, but ''at once'' a better government"<ref name="resistance">Thoreau, H. D. ''''</ref>{{ndash}} the direction of this improvement aims at anarchism: “‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”<ref name="resistance" />
<blockquote>
"I heartily accept the {{nowrap|motto,—}}'That government is best which governs least;' and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I {{nowrap|believe,—}}'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.... But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but ''at once'' a better government."<ref name="resistance">{{cite web |last1=Thoreau |first1=Henry David |title=On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1849, original title: Resistance to Civil Government |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/71/71-h/71-h.htm |website=] |access-date=May 20, 2023}}</ref>
</blockquote>


==Pronunciation of his name==
==Early life and education==
] and Thoreau's aunt each wrote that "Thoreau" is pronounced like the word ''thorough'' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|θ|ʌr|oʊ}} {{respell|THURR|oh}}—in ],<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170323203856/http://thoreau.eserver.org/pronounce |date=March 23, 2017 }} ''Thoreau Reader''.</ref><ref>'' {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131030102741/http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/walden/ |date=October 30, 2013 }}'', under the sidebar "Pronouncing Thoreau".</ref> but more precisely {{IPAc-en|ˈ|θ|ɔːr|oʊ}} {{respell|THOR|oh}}—in 19th-century New England). ] wrote that the name should be pronounced "Thó-row", with the ''h'' sounded and stress on the first syllable.<ref>See the note on pronouncing the name at {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190727140857/https://www.walden.org/thoreau/#Name |date=July 27, 2019 }}.</ref> Among modern-day American English speakers, it is perhaps more commonly pronounced {{IPAc-en|θ|ə|ˈ|r|oʊ}} {{respell|thə|ROH}}—with stress on the second syllable.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Thoreau|dictionary=Dictionary.com|date=2013|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thoreau|access-date=February 17, 2013|archive-date=August 27, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210827194246/https://www.dictionary.com/browse/thoreau|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Wells, J. C. (1990) ''Pronunciation Dictionary'', s.v. "Thoreau". Essex, UK: Longman.</ref>
He was born Henry Thoreau<ref>Nelson, Randy F. ''The Almanac of American Letters''. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 51. ISBN 086576008X</ref> in ], to John Thoreau (a pencil maker) and Cynthia Dunbar. His paternal grandfather was of French origin and was born in ].<ref></ref> His maternal grandfather, Asa Dunbar, led ] 1766 student "]",<ref></ref> the first recorded student protest in the Colonies.<ref></ref> David Henry was named after a recently deceased paternal uncle, David Thoreau. He did not become “Henry David” until after college, although he never petitioned to make a legal name change.<ref>, Meet the Writers, Barnes & Noble.com</ref> He had two older siblings, Helen and John Jr., and a younger sister, Sophia.<ref>, American Poems (2000-2007 Gunnar Bengtsson)</ref> ] still exists on Virginia Road in Concord and is currently the focus of preservation efforts. The house is original, but it now stands about 100 yards away from its first site.


==Physical appearance==
]
Thoreau had a distinctive appearance, with a nose that he called his "most prominent feature".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cape Cod|last=Thoreau|first=Henry David|year=1865|chapter=Chapter 10-A. Provincetown|chapter-url=http://thoreau.eserver.org:80/capecd10.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170822113030/http://thoreau.eserver.org/capecd10.html|archive-date=August 22, 2017|url-status=dead|access-date=February 13, 2007}}</ref> Of his appearance and disposition, ] wrote:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://thoreau.eserver.org/images.html|title=The Days of Henry Thoreau|author=Harding, Walter|work=thoreau.eserver.org|access-date=February 9, 2015|archive-date=November 14, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161114183837/http://thoreau.eserver.org/images.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
] and Thoreau's aunt each wrote that “Thoreau” is pronounced like the word “thorough”, whose standard American pronunciation rhymes with “furrow”.<ref> Thoreau Reader</ref> In appearance he was homely, with a nose that he called “my most prominent feature.”<ref>Thoreau, H.D. ''''</ref> Of his face, ] wrote: " is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty."<ref> Nathaniel Hawthorne</ref> Thoreau also wore a neck-beard for many years, which he insisted many women found attractive{{Citation needed|date=July 2009}}. However, ] reportedly{{Who|date=July 2009}} mentioned to ] that Thoreau's facial hair "will most assuredly deflect amorous advances and preserve the man's virtue in perpetuity."<ref>Colman, William, et al., ''The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of ]'' 16 vols. (Cambridge, Mass 1960-)</ref>
<blockquote>His face, once seen, could not be forgotten. The features were quite marked: the nose ] or very Roman, like one of the portraits of ] (more like a beak, as was said); large overhanging brows above the deepest set blue eyes that could be seen, in certain lights, and in others gray,—eyes expressive of all shades of feeling, but never weak or near-sighted; the forehead not unusually broad or high, full of concentrated energy and purpose; the mouth with prominent lips, pursed up with meaning and thought when silent, and giving out when open with the most varied and unusual instructive sayings.</blockquote>


==Life==
Thoreau studied at Harvard University between 1833 and 1837. He lived in ] and took courses in ], classics, philosophy, mathematics, and science. A legend proposes that Thoreau refused to pay the five-dollar fee for a Harvard diploma. In fact, the master's degree he declined to purchase had no academic merit: Harvard College offered it to graduates "who proved their physical worth by being alive three years after graduating, and their saving, earning, or inheriting quality or condition by having Five Dollars to give the college."<ref>"Thoreau's Diploma" ''American Literature'' Vol. 17, May 1945. 174-175.</ref> His comment was: "Let every sheep keep its own skin", a reference to the tradition of diplomas being written on ] ].{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}}
===Early life and education, 1817–1837===
] in ]]]


Henry David Thoreau was born David Henry Thoreau<ref>Nelson, Randy F. (1981). ''The Almanac of American Letters''. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann. p. 51. {{ISBN|0-86576-008-X}}.</ref> in ], into the "modest ] family"<ref name="McElroy">{{cite web |author1=Wendy McElroy |author1-link=Wendy McElroy |title=Henry David Thoreau and 'Civil Disobedience' |url=https://archive.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy86.html |website=] |access-date=May 21, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150620145129/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy86.html |archive-date=June 20, 2015 |date=July 30, 2005 |url-status=live}}</ref> of John Thoreau, a pencil maker, and Cynthia Dunbar. His father was of French Protestant descent.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uoi8eRYMXV4C&q=protestant|isbn = 9780822558934|title = Henry David Thoreau: A Biography|date = 2006|publisher = Twenty-First Century Books}}</ref> His paternal grandfather had been born on the UK ] island of ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=maold&id=I18020|title=RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: Ancestors of Mary Ann Gillam and Stephen Old|access-date=September 2, 2008|archive-date=October 16, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081016141209/http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=maold&id=I18020|url-status=live}}</ref> His maternal grandfather, Asa Dunbar, led ] 1766 student "]",<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090704122642/http://www.brown.edu/Students/Alpha_Delta_Phi/history/fraternities.php |date=July 4, 2009 }}.</ref> the first recorded student protest in the American colonies.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.trivialibrary.com/c/first-student-protest-in-the-united-states.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191215210840/http://www.trivialibrary.com/c/first-student-protest-in-the-united-states.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 15, 2019|title=First Student Protest in the United States}}</ref> David Henry was named after his recently deceased paternal uncle, David Thoreau. He began to call himself Henry David after he finished college; he never petitioned to make a legal name change.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061031164847/http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?z=y&cid=1019508 |date=October 31, 2006 }}, "Meet the Writers." Barnes & Noble.com</ref>
==Return to Concord: 1837-1841==
During a leave of absence from Harvard in 1835, Thoreau taught school in ]. After he graduated in 1837, he joined the faculty of <!-- Concord Academy (1822-1863) is a different institution than Concord Academy (est. 1922). --> Concord Academy, but he refused to administer ], and the school board soon dismissed him.{{Citation needed|date=July 2009}} He and his brother John then opened a ] in Concord in 1838. They introduced several progressive concepts, including nature walks and visits to local shops and businesses. The school ended when John became fatally ill from ] in 1842<ref>Dean, Bradley P. ""</ref> after cutting himself while shaving. He died in his brother Henry's arms.<ref>Woodlief, Ann ""</ref>


He had two older siblings, ] and John Jr., and a younger sister, ].<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190806235504/https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/thoreau/ |date=August 6, 2019 }}. americanpoems.com</ref> None of the children married.<ref name=":7">{{Cite web |date=September 19, 2020 |title=Helen and Sophia Thoreau, Henry David's Amazing Sisters |url=https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/helen-sophia-thoreau-henrys-amazing-sisters/ |access-date=May 15, 2022 |website=New England Historical Society |language=en-US}}</ref> Helen (1812–1849) died at age 37,<ref name=":7" /> from tuberculosis. John Jr. (1814–1842) died at age 27,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blanding |first=Thomas |date=1980 |title=Beans, Baked and Half-Baked (13) |url=https://archive.org/details/concordsaunter1980151unse/page/16/mode/1up |journal=The Concord Saunterer |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=16–22 |issn=1068-5359}}</ref> of ] after cutting himself while shaving.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Myerson |first=Joel |date=1994 |title=Barzillai Frost's Funeral Sermon on the Death of John Thoreau Jr. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3817844 |journal=Huntington Library Quarterly |volume=57 |issue=4 |pages=367–376 |doi=10.2307/3817844 |jstor=3817844 |issn=0018-7895}}</ref> Henry David (1817–1862) died at age 44, of tuberculosis.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Thoreau's Life {{!}} The Thoreau Society |url=https://www.thoreausociety.org/life-legacy |access-date=May 16, 2022 |website=www.thoreausociety.org}}</ref> Sophia (1819–1876) survived him by 14 years, dying at age 56,<ref name=":7" /> of tuberculosis.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Herrick |first=Gerri L. |date=1978 |title=Sophia Thoreau – "Cara Sophia" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23393396 |journal=The Concord Saunterer |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=5–12 |jstor=23393396 |issn=1068-5359}}</ref>


He studied at ] between 1833 and 1837. He lived in ]<ref>{{Cite web |last=Roman |first=John |date=June 24, 2021 |title=The Homes of Henry David Thoreau |url=http://www.electrummagazine.com/2021/06/the-homes-of-henry-david-thoreau/ |access-date=May 16, 2022 |website=Electrum Magazine}}</ref> and took courses in ], classics, philosophy, mathematics, and science.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau |url=https://thoreau.library.ucsb.edu/thoreau_life.html |access-date=May 16, 2022 |website=thoreau.library.ucsb.edu}}</ref> He was a member of the Institute of 1770<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thoreausociety.org/_membership.htm |title=Organizations Thoreau Joined |publisher=Thoreau Society |access-date=June 26, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130503192646/http://www.thoreausociety.org/_membership.htm |archive-date=May 3, 2013 }}</ref> (now the ]). According to legend, Thoreau refused to pay the five-dollar fee (approximately {{inflation|US|5|1840|fmt=eq}}) for a Harvard master's diploma, which he described thus: ] offered it to graduates "who proved their physical worth by being alive three years after graduating, and their saving, earning, or inheriting quality or condition by having Five Dollars to give the college".<ref>"Thoreau's Diploma". ''American Literature''. Vol. 17, May 1945. pp. 174–175.</ref> He commented, "Let every sheep keep its own skin",<ref>{{cite web |author=Walter Harding |url=http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/about2/H/WalterHarding/LiveYourOwnLife.htm |title=Live Your Own Life |work=Geneseo Summer Compass |date=June 4, 1984 |access-date=November 21, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060129085602/http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/about2/H/WalterHarding/LiveYourOwnLife.htm |archive-date=January 29, 2006|author-link=Walter Harding }}</ref> a reference to the tradition of using ] ] for diplomas.
Upon graduation Thoreau returned home to Concord, where he met ]. Emerson took a paternal and at times patronizing interest in Thoreau, advising the young man and introducing him to a circle of local writers and thinkers, including ], ], Bronson Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne and his son ], who was a boy at the time.


] still exists on Virginia Road in Concord. The house has been restored by the Thoreau Farm Trust,<ref>{{cite web|title=Thoreau Farm|work=thoreaufarm.org|url=http://thoreaufarm.org/|access-date=April 23, 2013|archive-date=October 30, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191030230744/https://thoreaufarm.org/|url-status=live}}</ref> a nonprofit organization, and is now open to the public.
Emerson urged Thoreau to contribute essays and poems to a quarterly periodical, '']'', and Emerson lobbied editor Margaret Fuller to publish those writings. Thoreau’s first essay published there was ''];'' an essay on the playwright of the same name, published in '']'' in July 1840.<ref>"".</ref> It consisted of revised passages from his journal, which he had begun keeping at Emerson’s suggestion. The first journal entry on October 22, 1837, reads, "‘What are you doing now?’ he asked. ‘Do you keep a journal?’ So I make my first entry today."


===Return to Concord, 1837–1844===
Thoreau was a philosopher of nature and its relation to the human condition. In his early years he followed ], a loose and eclectic ] philosophy advocated by Emerson, Fuller, and Alcott. They held that an ideal spiritual state transcends, or goes beyond, the physical and empirical, and that one achieves that insight via personal intuition rather than religious doctrine. In their view, Nature is the outward sign of inward spirit, expressing the “radical correspondence of visible things and human thoughts,” as Emerson wrote in ''Nature'' (1836).
The traditional professions open to college graduates—law, the church, business, medicine—did not interest Thoreau,<ref name="sattelmeyer">Sattelmeyer, Robert (1988). ''Thoreau's Reading: A Study in Intellectual History with Bibliographical Catalogue''. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150908031952/http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/about2/S/Sattelmeyer_Robert/Reading2.pdf |date=September 8, 2015 }}. Princeton: Princeton University Press.</ref>{{Rp|25}} so in 1835 he took a leave of absence from Harvard, during which he taught at a school in ], living for two years at an earlier version of today's ] in Concord. His grandfather owned the earliest of the three buildings that were later combined.<ref name=hudson311>''The History of Concord, Massachusetts, Vol. I, Colonial Concord, Volume 1'', Alfred Sereno Hudson (1904), p. 311</ref> After he graduated in 1837, Thoreau joined the faculty of the Concord public school, but he resigned after a few weeks rather than administer ].<ref name="sattelmeyer"/>{{Rp|25}} He and his brother John then opened the Concord Academy, a ] in Concord, in 1838.<!-- Concord Academy (1822–1863) is a different institution than Concord Academy (est. 1922). --><ref name="sattelmeyer" />{{Rp|25}} They introduced several progressive concepts, including nature walks and visits to local shops and businesses. The school closed when John became fatally ill from ] in 1842 after cutting himself while shaving.<ref>Dean, Bradley P. " {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170620133904/http://thoreau.eserver.org/wfchron.html |date=June 20, 2017 }}".</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|jstor=3817844 |title=Barzillai Frost's Funeral Sermon on the Death of John Thoreau Jr. |journal=Huntington Library Quarterly |volume=57 |issue=4 |pages=367–376 |date=1994 |author=Myerson, Joel|doi=10.2307/3817844 }}</ref> He died in Henry's arms.<ref>Woodlief, Ann. " {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191009005716/https://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/ |date=October 9, 2019 }}".</ref>


Upon graduation Thoreau returned home to Concord, where he met ] through a mutual friend.<ref name=McElroy/> Emerson, who was 14 years his senior, took a paternal and at times patron-like interest in Thoreau, advising the young man and introducing him to a circle of local writers and thinkers, including ], ], ], and ] and his son ], who was a boy at the time.
]


Emerson urged Thoreau to contribute essays and poems to a quarterly periodical, '']'', and lobbied the editor, Margaret Fuller, to publish those writings. Thoreau's first essay published in ''The Dial'' was "Aulus Persius Flaccus",<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.walden.org/documents/file/Library/About%20Thoreau/D/Dial/AulusPersiusFlaccus.pdf|title=Aulus Persius Flaccus|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120925021512/http://www.walden.org/documents/file/Library/About%20Thoreau/D/Dial/AulusPersiusFlaccus.pdf|archive-date=September 25, 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> an essay on the Roman poet and satirist, in July 1840.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.walden.org/Library/About_Thoreau's_Life_and_Writings:_The_Research_Collections/The_Dial |title=''The Dial'' |publisher=Walden.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018151944/http://www.walden.org/Library/About_Thoreau%27s_Life_and_Writings%3A_The_Research_Collections/The_Dial |archive-date=October 18, 2015 }}</ref> It consisted of revised passages from his journal, which he had begun keeping at Emerson's suggestion. The first journal entry, on October 22, 1837, reads, {{"'}}What are you doing now?' he asked. 'Do you keep a journal?' So I make my first entry to-day."<ref>Thoreau, Henry David (2007). ''I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau''. Jeffrey S. Cramer, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 1.</ref>
On April 18, 1841, Thoreau moved into the Emerson house.<ref name=Cheever>Cheever, Susan (2006). ''American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work''. Detroit: Thorndike Press. Large print edition. p. 90. ISBN 078629521X.</ref> There, from 1841-1844, he served as the children’s tutor, editorial assistant, and repair man/gardener. For a few months in 1843, he moved to the home of William Emerson on ],<ref>{{cite book |title=The Life of Henry David Thoreau |last=Salt |first=H.S. |year=1890 |publisher=Richard Bentley & Son |location=London |isbn= |pages=}}</ref> and tutored the family sons while writing for New York periodicals, aided in part by his future literary representative ]{{Citation needed|date=March 2007}}.


Thoreau was a philosopher of nature and its relation to the human condition. In his early years he followed ], a loose and eclectic ] philosophy advocated by Emerson, Fuller, and Alcott. They held that an ideal spiritual state transcends, or goes beyond, the physical and empirical, and that one achieves that insight via personal intuition rather than religious doctrine. In their view, Nature is the outward sign of inward spirit, expressing the "radical correspondence of visible things and human thoughts", as Emerson wrote in ''Nature'' (1836).
Thoreau returned to Concord and worked in his family's ] factory, which he continued to do for most of his adult life. He rediscovered the process to make a good pencil out of inferior ] by using clay as the binder; this invention improved upon graphite found in ] in 1821 by Charles Dunbar. (The process of mixing graphite and clay, known as the Conté process, was patented by ] in 1795.) Later, Thoreau converted the factory to produce plumbago (graphite), which was used to ink ] machines.<ref>Conrad, Randall. (Fall 2005). . '''' (253).</ref>


]]]
Once back in Concord, Thoreau went through a restless period. In April 1844 he and his friend Edward Hoar accidentally set a fire that consumed {{convert|300|acre|km2}} of Walden Woods.<ref></ref> He spoke often of finding a farm to buy or lease, which he felt would give him a means to support himself while also providing enough solitude to write his first book{{Citation needed|date=March 2007}}.


On April 18, 1841, Thoreau moved in with the ].<ref name="Cheever">Cheever, Susan (2006). ''American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work''. Detroit: Thorndike Press. p. 90. {{ISBN|0-7862-9521-X}}.</ref> There, from 1841 to 1844, he served as the children's tutor; he was also an editorial assistant, repairman and gardener. For a few months in 1843, he moved to the home of William Emerson on ],<ref>{{cite book |title=The Life of Henry David Thoreau |last=Salt |first=H. S. |date=1890 |publisher=Richard Bentley & Son |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_t_0RAAAAYAAJ |page=}}</ref> and tutored the family's sons while seeking contacts among literary men and journalists in the city who might help publish his writings, including his future literary representative ].<ref>Sanborn, F. B., ed. (1906). ''The Writings of Henry David Thoreau''. Vol. VI, ''Familiar Letters''. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150907235501/http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/writings/Writings1906/06FamiliarLetters/Years%20of%20Discipline.pdf |date=September 7, 2015 }}. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.</ref>{{Rp|68}}
==Civil disobedience and the Walden years: 1845–1849==
]


Thoreau returned to Concord and worked in his family's ] factory, which he would continue to do alongside his writing and other work for most of his adult life. He resurrected the process of making good pencils with inferior ] by using clay as a binder.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/pencilhistoryofd00petr|url-access=registration|title=The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance|last=Petroski|first=Henry|publisher=Knopf|year=1992|isbn=9780679734154|location=New York|pages=–125}}</ref> The process of mixing graphite and clay, known as the Conté process, had been first patented by ] in 1795. Thoreau made profitable use of a graphite source found in ] that had been purchased in 1821 by his uncle, Charles Dunbar. The company's other source of graphite had been ], a mine operated by Native Americans in ]. Later, Thoreau converted the pencil factory to produce plumbago, a name for graphite at the time, which was used in the ] process.<ref>Conrad, Randall. (Fall 2005). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609102739/http://thoreau.eserver.org/pencils.html |date=June 9, 2007 }}. '' {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071223191911/http://www.thoreausociety.org/_activities_tsb.htm |date=December 23, 2007 }}'' 253.</ref>
Thoreau embarked on a two-year experiment in ] on July 4, 1845, when he moved to a small, self-built house on land owned by Emerson in a ] around the shores of ]. The house was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, {{convert|1.5|mi|km}} from his family home.{{Citation needed|date=April 2008}}


Once back in Concord, Thoreau went through a restless period. In April 1844 he and his friend Edward Hoar accidentally set a fire that consumed {{convert|300|acre|ha|-1|abbr=off}} of Walden Woods.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160213001457/http://www.calliope.org/thoreau/thorotime.html |date=February 13, 2016 }}. The Thoreau Project, Calliope Film Resources. Accessed June 11, 2007.</ref>
On July 24 or July 25, 1846, Thoreau ran into the local ], Sam Staples, who asked him to pay six years of delinquent ]es. Thoreau refused because of his opposition to the ] and ], and he spent a night in jail because of this refusal. (The next day Thoreau was freed, against his wishes, when his aunt paid his taxes.<ref>Rosenwald, Lawrence. "". William Cain, ed. ''A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau''. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2006.</ref>) The experience had a strong impact on Thoreau. In January and February 1848, he delivered lectures on "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government"<ref>Thoreau, H. D. letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson February 23, 1848</ref> explaining his tax resistance at the ]. Bronson Alcott attended the lecture, writing in his journal on January 26:


==="Civil Disobedience" and the Walden years, 1845–1850===
<blockquote>Heard Thoreau’s lecture before the Lyceum on the relation of the individual to the State– an admirable statement of the rights of the individual to self-government, and an attentive audience. His allusions to the Mexican War, to Mr. Hoar’s expulsion from Carolina, his own imprisonment in Concord Jail for refusal to pay his tax, Mr. Hoar’s payment of mine when taken to prison for a similar refusal, were all pertinent, well considered, and reasoned. I took great pleasure in this deed of Thoreau’s.<ref>Alcott, Bronson. ''Journals''. Boston: Little, Brown, 1938.</ref></blockquote>
]


{{blockquote|I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.| Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For", in '']''<ref>''Grammardog Guide to Walden''. Grammardog. p. 25. {{ISBN|1-60857-084-3}}.</ref>}}
Thoreau revised the lecture into an essay entitled '']'' (also known as ''Civil Disobedience''). In May 1849 it was published by ] in the '']''. Thoreau had taken up a version of ]'s principle in the political poem '']'' (1819), that Shelley begins with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time - and then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action.<ref>http://www.morrissociety.org/JWMS/SP94.10.4.Nichols.pdf</ref>


Thoreau felt a need to concentrate and work more on his writing. In 1845, ] told Thoreau, "Go out upon that, build yourself a hut, & there begin the grand process of devouring yourself alive. I see no other alternative, no other hope for you."{{sfn|Packer|2007|p=}} Thus, on July 4, 1845, Thoreau embarked on a two-year experiment in ], moving to a small house he had built on land owned by Emerson in a ] around the shores of ], having had a request to build a hut on ], near that of his friend ], denied by the landowners due to the ] incident.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |title=Flint's Pond |url=https://lincolnconservation.org/tws_holding/flints-pond/ |access-date=May 6, 2023 |publisher=Lincoln Land Conservation Trust and Rural Land Foundation |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Meltzer |first=Milton |title=Henry David Thoreau: A Biography |publisher=Twenty-First Century Books |year=2006 |isbn=9780822558934 |pages=23}}</ref> The house was in "a pretty pasture and woodlot" of {{convert|14|acre|ha|1|abbr=off}} that Emerson had bought,<ref>Richardson. ''Emerson: The Mind on Fire''. p. 399.</ref> {{convert|1+1/2|mi|km|round=0.5|abbr=off|sp=us}} from his family home.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.google.com/maps/search/concord+mass/@42.449808,-71.342769,15z?dg=dbrw&newdg=1 |title=Google Maps |access-date=October 13, 2018|archive-date=January 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200125151513/https://www.google.com/maps/search/concord+mass/@42.449808,-71.342769,15z?dg=dbrw&newdg=1 |url-status=live}}</ref> Whilst there, he wrote his only extended piece of literary criticism, "]".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gravett |first=Sharon L. |date=1995 |title=Carlyle's Demanding Companion: Henry David Thoreau |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44946086 |journal=Carlyle Studies Annual |publisher=Saint Joseph's University Press |issue=15 |pages=21–31 |jstor=44946086 |url-access=registration }}</ref>
At Walden Pond, he completed a first draft of '']'', an ] to his brother, John, that described their 1839 trip to the ]. Thoreau did not find a publisher for this book and instead printed 1,000 copies at his own expense, though fewer than 300 were sold.<ref name=Cheever/>{{rp|234}} Thoreau self-published on the advice of Emerson, using Emerson’s own publisher, Munroe, who did little to publicize the book. Its failure put Thoreau into debt that took years to pay off, and Emerson’s flawed advice caused a schism between the friends that never entirely healed.{{Citation needed|date=July 2009}}


]
In August 1846, Thoreau briefly left Walden to make a trip to ] in ], a journey later recorded in “Ktaadn,” the first part of '']''.


On July 24 or July 25, 1846, Thoreau ran into the local ], Sam Staples, who asked him to pay six years of delinquent ]. Thoreau refused because of his opposition to the ] and ], and he spent a night in jail because of this refusal. The next day Thoreau was freed when someone, likely to have been his aunt, paid the tax, against his wishes.<ref name=":2">Rosenwald, Lawrence. "". William Cain, ed. (2006). ''A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau''. Cambridge: Oxford University Press. {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20131014012153/http://thoreau.eserver.org/theory.html|date=October 14, 2013|title=Archived}}</ref> The experience had a strong impact on Thoreau. In January and February 1848, he delivered lectures on "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government",<ref>Thoreau, H. D., letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, February 23, 1848.</ref> explaining his tax resistance at the ]. Bronson Alcott attended the lecture, writing in his journal on January 26:
Thoreau left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847.<ref name=Cheever/>{{rp|244}} Over several years, he worked to pay off his debts and also continuously revised his manuscript for what, in 1854, he would publish as '']'', recounting the two years, two months, and two days he had spent at Walden Pond. The book compresses that time into a single calendar year, using the passage of four seasons to symbolize human development. Part ] and part spiritual quest, ''Walden'' at first won few admirers, but today critics{{Who|date=July 2009}} regard it as a classic American book that explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty as models for just social and cultural conditions.


{{blockquote|Heard Thoreau's lecture before the Lyceum on the relation of the individual to the State—an admirable statement of the rights of the individual to self-government, and an attentive audience. His allusions to the Mexican War, to Mr. ]'s expulsion from Carolina, his own imprisonment in Concord Jail for refusal to pay his tax, Mr. Hoar's payment of mine when taken to prison for a similar refusal, were all pertinent, well considered, and reasoned. I took great pleasure in this deed of Thoreau's.|Bronson Alcott|''Journals''<ref>Alcott, Bronson (1938). ''Journals''. Boston: Little, Brown.</ref>}}
==Later years: 1851-1862==
]


Thoreau revised the lecture into an essay titled "]" (also known as "Civil Disobedience"). It was published by ] in the ''Aesthetic Papers'' in May 1849. Thoreau had taken up a version of ]'s principle in the political poem "]" (1819), which begins with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time and then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.morrissociety.org/JWMS/SP94.10.4.Nichols.pdf |title=Morrissociety.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110105232938/http://www.morrissociety.org/JWMS/SP94.10.4.Nichols.pdf |archive-date=January 5, 2011 }}</ref>
In 1851, Thoreau became very sick, he loved to write and look at nature and eat popcorn. He read avidly on ] and often wrote observations on this topic into his journal. He admired ], and ]’s '']''. He kept detailed observations on Concord's nature lore, recording everything from how the fruit ripened over time to the fluctuating depths of Walden Pond and the days certain birds migrated. The point of this task was to “anticipate” the seasons of nature, in his words.{{Citation needed|date=July 2009}}


At Walden Pond, Thoreau completed a first draft of '']'', an ] to his brother John, describing their trip to the ] in 1839. Thoreau did not find a publisher for the book and instead printed 1,000 copies at his own expense; fewer than 300 were sold.<ref name="Cheever" />{{Rp|234}} He self-published on the advice of Emerson, using Emerson's publisher, Munroe, who did little to publicize the book.
He became a land surveyor and continued to write increasingly detailed natural history observations about the {{convert|26|sqmi|km2}} township in his journal, a two-million word document he kept for 24&nbsp;years. He also kept a series of notebooks, and these observations became the source for Thoreau's late natural history writings, such as '']'', '']'', and '']'', an essay bemoaning the destruction of indigenous and wild apple species.


{{multiple image
Until the 1970s, literary critics{{Who|date=July 2009}} dismissed Thoreau’s late pursuits as amateur science and philosophy. With the rise of ] and ], several new readings{{Who|date=July 2009}} of this matter began to emerge, showing Thoreau to be both a philosopher and an analyst of ecological patterns in fields and woodlots. For instance, his late essay, "The Succession of Forest Trees," shows that he used experimentation and analysis to explain how forests regenerate after fire or human destruction, through dispersal by seed-bearing winds or animals.
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In August 1846, Thoreau briefly left Walden to make a trip to ] in ], a journey that was later recorded in "Ktaadn", the first part of ''The Maine Woods''.
He traveled to ] once, ] four times, and Maine three times; these landscapes inspired his "excursion" books, '']'', '']'', and ''The Maine Woods'', in which travel itineraries frame his thoughts about geography, history and philosophy. Other travels took him southwest to ] and ] in 1854, and west across the ] in 1861, visiting ], ], ], ], ] and ].<ref>Henry David Thoreau, ''The Annotated Walden'' (1970), Philip Van Doren Stern, ed., pp. 96, 132</ref> Although provincial in his physical travels, he was extraordinarily well-read and vicariously a world traveler. He obsessively devoured all the first-hand travel accounts available in his day, at a time when the last unmapped regions of the earth were being explored. He read Magellan and Cook, the arctic explorers Franklin, Mackenzie and Parry, Darwin's account of his voyage on the Beagle, Livingstone and Burton on Africa, Lewis and Clark; and hundreds of lesser-known works by explorers and literate travelers.<ref>John Aldrich Christie, ''Thoreau as World Traveler'', Columbia University Press (1965)</ref> Astonishing amounts of global reading fed his endless curiosity about the peoples, cultures, religions and natural history of the world, and left its traces as commentaries in his voluminous journals. He processed everything he read, in the local laboratory of his Concord experience. Among his famous aphorisms is his advice to "Live at home like a traveler."


Thoreau left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847.<ref name="Cheever" />{{Rp|244}} At Emerson's request, he immediately moved back to the Emerson house to help Emerson's wife, Lidian, manage the household while her husband was on an extended trip to Europe.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thoreausociety.org/_news_abouthdt.htm |title=Thoreausociety.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101129085846/http://thoreausociety.org/_news_abouthdt.htm |archive-date=November 29, 2010 }}</ref> Over several years, as he worked to pay off his debts, he continuously revised the manuscript of what he eventually published as '']'' in 1854, recounting the two years, two months, and two days he had spent at Walden Pond. The book compresses that time into a single calendar year, using the passage of the four seasons to symbolize human development. Part ] and part spiritual quest, ''Walden'' at first won few admirers, but later critics have regarded it as a classic American work that explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty as models for just social and cultural conditions.
After ], many prominent voices in the abolitionist movement distanced themselves from Brown, or damned him with faint praise. Thoreau was disgusted by this, and he composed a speech – '']'' – which was uncompromising in its defense of Brown and his actions. Thoreau’s speech proved persuasive: first the abolitionist movement began to accept Brown as a martyr, and by the time of the ] entire armies of the North were ]. As a contemporary biographer of John Brown put it: “If, as ] suggests, without John Brown there would have been no Civil War, we would add that without the Concord Transcendentalists, John Brown would have had little cultural impact.”<ref>Reynolds, David S. ''John Brown, Abolitionist'' Knopf (2005), p. 4</ref>


The American poet ] wrote of Thoreau, "In one book ... he surpasses everything we have had in America."<ref>Frost, Robert (1968). Letter to Wade Van Dore, June 24, 1922, in ''Twentieth Century Interpretations of Walden''. Richard Ruland, ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. p. 8. {{LCCN|6814480}}.</ref>
==Death==
]


The American author ] said of the book, "A century and a half after its publication, Walden has become such a totem of the back-to-nature, preservationist, anti-business, civil-disobedience mindset, and Thoreau so vivid a protester, so perfect a crank and hermit saint, that the book risks being as revered and unread as the Bible."<ref>Updike, John (2004). "A Sage for All Seasons". {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210827194247/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jun/26/classics |date=August 27, 2021 }}.</ref>
Thoreau contracted ] in 1835 and suffered from it sporadically afterwards. In 1859, following a late night excursion to count the rings of tree stumps during a rain storm, he became ill with ]. His health declined over three years with brief periods of remission, until he eventually became bedridden. Recognizing the terminal nature of his disease, Thoreau spent his last years revising and editing his unpublished works, particularly ''The Maine Woods'' and ''Excursions'', and petitioning publishers to print revised editions of ''A Week'' and ''Walden''. He also wrote letters and journal entries until he became too weak to continue. His friends were alarmed at his diminished appearance and were fascinated by his tranquil acceptance of death. When his aunt Louisa asked him in his last weeks if he had made his peace with God, Thoreau responded: "I did not know we had ever quarreled."{{Citation needed|date=July 2009}}


Thoreau moved out of Emerson's house in July 1848 and stayed at a house on nearby Belknap Street. In 1850, he moved into a house at ], where he lived until his death.<ref>Ehrlich, Eugene; Carruth, Gorton (1982). ''The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 45. {{ISBN|0-19-503186-5}}.</ref>
Aware he was dying, Thoreau's last words were "Now comes good sailing", followed by two lone words, "moose" and "Indian".<ref></ref> He died on May 6, 1862 at age 44. Bronson Alcott planned the service and read selections from Thoreau's works, and Channing presented a hymn.<ref>Packer, Barbara L. ''The Transcendentalists''. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2007: 272. ISBN 9780820329581.</ref> Emerson wrote the ] spoken at his funeral.<ref></ref> Originally buried in the Dunbar family plot, he and members of his immediate family were eventually moved to ] in Concord, Massachusetts.


In the summer of 1850, Thoreau and Channing journeyed from Boston to ] and ]. These would be Thoreau's only travels outside the United States.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Weisman|first1=Adam Paul|title=Postcolonialism in North America: Imaginative Colonization in Henry David Thoreau's 'A Yankee in Canada' and Jacques Poulin's 'Volkswagen Blues'|journal=The Massachusetts Review|date=Autumn 1995|volume=36|issue=3|pages=478–479}}</ref> It is as a result of this trip that he developed lectures that eventually became ''A Yankee in Canada''. He jested that all he got from this adventure "was a cold".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Thoreau|first1=Henry David|title=A Yankee in Canada|url=https://archive.org/details/yankeeincanada0000thor|url-access=registration|date=1961|publisher=Harvest House|location=Montreal|page=}}</ref> In fact, this proved an opportunity to contrast American civic spirit and democratic values with a colony apparently ruled by illegitimate religious and military power. Whereas his own country had had its revolution, in Canada history had failed to turn.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite journal|last1=Lacroix|first1=Patrick|title=Finding Thoreau in French Canada: The Ideological Legacy of the American Revolution|journal=American Review of Canadian Studies|date=Fall 2017|volume=47|issue=3|pages=266–279|doi=10.1080/02722011.2017.1370719|s2cid=148808283}}</ref>
Thoreau’s friend ] published his first biography, ''Thoreau the Poet-Naturalist'', in 1873, and Channing and another friend Harrison Blake edited some poems, essays, and journal entries for posthumous publication in the 1890s. Thoreau’s journals, which he often mined for his published works but which remained largely unpublished at his death, was first published in 1906 and helped to build his modern reputation. A new, expanded edition of the journals is underway, published by Princeton University Press. Today, Thoreau is regarded{{Who|date=July 2009}} as one of the foremost American writers, both for the modern clarity of his prose style and the prescience of his views on nature and politics. His memory is honored by the international ].


===Later years, 1851–1862===
==Beliefs==
].]] ]
In 1851, Thoreau became increasingly fascinated with ] and narratives of travel and expedition. He read avidly on ] and often wrote observations on this topic into his journal. He admired ] and ]'s '']''. He kept detailed observations on Concord's nature lore, recording everything from how the fruit ripened over time to the fluctuating depths of Walden Pond and the days certain birds migrated. The point of this task was to "anticipate" the seasons of nature, in his word.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110617003953/http://www.walden.org/documents/file/Library/Thoreau/writings/correspondence/LettersBlake.pdf |date=June 17, 2011 }}. Walden.org</ref><ref>Thoreau, Henry David (1862). "Autumnal Tints". ''The Atlantic Monthly'', October. pp. 385–402. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100307053611/http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/writings/essays/Thoreau_Autumnal%20Tints.pdf |date=March 7, 2010 }}. Retrieved November 21, 2009.</ref>


He became a ] and continued to write increasingly detailed observations on the natural history of the town, covering an area of {{convert|26|sqmi|km2|abbr=off|sp=us}}, in his journal, a two-million-word document he kept for 24 years. He also kept a series of notebooks, and these observations became the source of his late writings on natural history, such as "Autumnal Tints", "The Succession of Trees", and "Wild Apples", an essay lamenting the destruction of the local ] species.
{{quote|“Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”| Thoreau <ref>''Walden, or Life in the Woods'' (Chapter 1: “Economy”)</ref>}}


With the rise of ] and ] as academic disciplines, several new readings of Thoreau began to emerge, showing him to have been both a philosopher and an analyst of ecological patterns in fields and woodlots.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Thorson|first1=Robert M.|title=Walden's Shore: Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Science|date=2013|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|isbn=978-0674724785}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Primack|first1=Richard B.|title=Tracking Climate Change with the Help of Henry David Thoreau|url=http://www.elsevier.com/connect/tracking-climate-change-with-the-help-of-henry-david-thoreau|access-date=September 23, 2015|date=June 13, 2013|archive-date=September 23, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923155958/http://www.elsevier.com/connect/tracking-climate-change-with-the-help-of-henry-david-thoreau|url-status=live}}</ref> For instance, "The Succession of Forest Trees", shows that he used experimentation and analysis to explain how forests regenerate after fire or human destruction, through the dispersal of seeds by winds or animals. In this lecture, first presented to a cattle show in Concord, and considered his greatest contribution to ecology, Thoreau explained why one species of tree can grow in a place where a different tree did previously. He observed that ]s often carry nuts far from the tree from which they fell to create stashes. These seeds are likely to germinate and grow should the squirrel die or abandon the stash. He credited the squirrel for performing a "great service ... in the economy of the universe."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Worster|first1=Donald|title=Nature's Economy|date=1977|publisher=Cambridge University|location=New York|isbn=0-521-45273-2|pages=69–71}}</ref>
Thoreau was an early advocate of recreational hiking and ], of conserving natural resources on private land, and of preserving wilderness as public land. Thoreau was also one of the first American supporters of ]'s ]. He was not a strict ], though he said he preferred that diet<ref>Brooks, Van Wyck. ''The Flowering of New England''. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1952. p. 310</ref> and advocated it as a means of self-improvement. He wrote in ''Walden'': “The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth.”<ref name=Cheever241>Cheever, Susan (2006). ''American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work''. Detroit: Thorndike Press. Large print edition. p. 241. ISBN 078629521X.</ref>
]]]


He traveled to ] once, ] four times, and Maine three times; these landscapes inspired his "excursion" books, '']'', ''Cape Cod'', and ''The Maine Woods'', in which travel itineraries frame his thoughts about geography, history and philosophy. Other travels took him southwest to ] and New York City in 1854 and west across the ] in 1861, when he visited ], Detroit, Chicago, ], ] and ].<ref>Thoreau, Henry David (1970). ''The Annotated Walden''. Philip Van Doren Stern, ed. pp. 96, 132.</ref> He was provincial in his own travels, but he read widely about travel in other lands. He devoured all the first-hand travel accounts available in his day, at a time when the last unmapped regions of the earth were being explored. He read ] and ]; the ]s ], ] and ]; ] and ] on Africa; ]; and hundreds of lesser-known works by explorers and literate travelers.<ref>Christie, John Aldrich (1965). ''Thoreau as World Traveler''. New York: Columbia University Press.</ref> Astonishing amounts of reading fed his endless curiosity about the peoples, cultures, religions and natural history of the world and left its traces as commentaries in his voluminous journals. He processed everything he read, in the local laboratory of his Concord experience. Among his famous aphorisms is his advice to "live at home like a traveler".<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110617003655/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Correspondence |date=June 17, 2011 }} in ''The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection''.</ref>
Thoreau neither rejected civilization nor fully embraced wilderness. Instead he sought a middle ground, the ] realm that integrates both nature and culture. The wildness he enjoyed was the nearby swamp or forest, and he preferred “partially cultivated country.” His idea of being “far in the recesses of the wilderness” of Maine was to “travel the logger’s path and the Indian trail,” but he also hiked on pristine untouched land. In the essay “Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher” ] writes: “Thoreau left Concord in 1846 for the first of three trips to northern Maine. His expectations were high because he hoped to find genuine, primeval America. But contact with real wilderness in Maine affected him far differently than had the idea of wilderness in Concord. Instead of coming out of the woods with a deepened appreciation of the wilds, Thoreau felt a greater respect for civilization and realized the necessity of balance.”{{Citation needed|date=July 2009}}


After ], many prominent voices in the abolitionist movement distanced themselves from Brown or ]. Thoreau was disgusted by this, and he composed a key speech, "]", which was uncompromising in its defense of Brown and his actions. Thoreau's speech proved persuasive: the abolitionist movement began to accept Brown as a martyr, and by the time of the ] entire armies of the North were ]. As a biographer of Brown put it, "If, as Alfred Kazin suggests, without John Brown there would have been no Civil War, we would add that without the Concord Transcendentalists, John Brown would have had little cultural impact."<ref>Reynolds, David S. (2005). ''John Brown, Abolitionist''. Knopf. p. 4.</ref>
On alcohol, Thoreau wrote: “I would fain keep sober always… I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor… Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?”<ref name="Cheever241"/>
]

===Tuberculosis and death===
Thoreau contracted ] in 1835 and suffered from it sporadically afterwards. In 1860, following a late-night excursion to count the rings of tree stumps during a rainstorm, he became ill with ].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Richardson|first=Robert D. Jr.|title=Faith in a Seed: The First Publication of Thoreau's Last Manuscript|publisher=Island Press|year=1993|editor-last=Dean|editor-first=Bradley P.|location=Washington, D.C.|pages=17|chapter=Introduction}}</ref><ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160620045648/http://www.walden.org/Library/About_Thoreau%27s_Life_and_Writings%3A_The_Research_Collections/Thoreau%2C_the_Man |date=June 20, 2016 }}.</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170620133904/http://thoreau.eserver.org/wfchron.html |date=June 20, 2017 }}.</ref> His health declined, with brief periods of remission, and he eventually became bedridden. Recognizing the terminal nature of his disease, Thoreau spent his last years revising and editing his unpublished works, particularly ''The Maine Woods'' and ], and petitioning publishers to print revised editions of ''A Week'' and ''Walden''. He wrote letters and journal entries until he became too weak to continue. His friends were alarmed at his diminished appearance and were fascinated by his tranquil acceptance of death. When his aunt Louisa asked him in his last weeks if he had made his peace with God, Thoreau responded, "I did not know we had ever quarreled."<ref>{{cite book|first=Simon|last=Critchley|title=The Book of Dead Philosophers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ME-6IKs4a2sC&pg=PA181|page=181|location=New York|publisher=Random House|date=2009|isbn=978-0307472632|access-date=June 20, 2015|archive-date=August 27, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210827194251/https://books.google.com/books?id=ME-6IKs4a2sC&pg=PA181|url-status=live}}</ref>

] in Concord]] ]
Aware he was dying, Thoreau's last words were "Now comes good sailing", followed by two lone words, "moose" and "Indian".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2008/05/05/|title=The Writer's Almanac|publisher=American Public Media|access-date=June 1, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170708225006/http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2008/05/05/|archive-date=July 8, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> He died on May 6, 1862, at age 44. ] planned the service and read selections from Thoreau's works, and Channing presented a hymn.<ref>{{cite book |last=Packer |first=Barbara L. |year=2007 |title=The Transcendentalists |location=Athens, Georgia |publisher=University of Georgia Press |page=272 |isbn=978-0-8203-2958-1}}</ref> Emerson wrote the eulogy spoken at the funeral.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NWACAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA239|last= Emerson|first= Ralph Waldo |title=Thoreau|magazine=The Atlantic|date= August 1862|pages=239–}}</ref> Thoreau was buried in the Dunbar family plot; his remains and those of members of his immediate family were eventually moved to ] in Concord, Massachusetts.

===Nature and human existence===
{{blockquote|Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.| Thoreau<ref>''Walden, or Life in the Woods'' (Chapter 1: "Economy")</ref>}}

Thoreau was an early advocate of recreational hiking and ], of conserving natural resources on private land, and of preserving wilderness as public land. He was himself a highly skilled canoeist; ], after a ride with him, noted that "Mr. Thoreau managed the boat so perfectly, either with two paddles or with one, that it seemed instinct with his own will, and to require no physical effort to guide it."<ref>Nathaniel Hawthorne, Passages From the American Note-Books, entry for September 2, 1842.</ref>

He was not a strict vegetarian, though he said he preferred that diet<ref>Brooks, Van Wyck. ''The Flowering of New England''. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1952. p. 310</ref> and advocated it as a means of self-improvement. He wrote in ''Walden'', "The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth."<ref name="Cheever241">Cheever, Susan (2006). ''American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work''. Detroit: Thorndike Press. Large print edition. p. 241. {{ISBN|0-7862-9521-X}}.</ref>

]
Thoreau neither rejected civilization nor fully embraced wilderness. Instead he sought a middle ground, the ] realm that integrates nature and culture. His philosophy required that he be a didactic arbitrator between the wilderness he based so much on and the spreading mass of humanity in North America. He decried the latter endlessly but felt that a teacher needs to be close to those who needed to hear what he wanted to tell them. The wildness he enjoyed was the nearby swamp or forest, and he preferred "partially cultivated country". His idea of being "far in the recesses of the wilderness" of Maine was to "travel the logger's path and the Indian trail", but he also hiked on pristine land.

In an essay titled, "Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher", ] ] wrote, "Thoreau left Concord in 1846 for the first of three trips to northern Maine. His expectations were high because he hoped to find genuine, primeval America. But contact with real wilderness in Maine affected him far differently than had the idea of wilderness in Concord. Instead of coming out of the woods with a deepened appreciation of the wilds, Thoreau felt a greater respect for civilization and realized the necessity of balance."<ref>Nash, Roderick. ''Wilderness and the American Mind: Henry David Thoreau: Philosopher''.</ref>

Of alcohol, Thoreau wrote, "I would fain keep sober always. ... I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor. ... Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?"<ref name="Cheever241" />

===Sexuality===
Thoreau ] and was childless. In 1840, when he was 23, he proposed to eighteen-year old ], but she refused him, on the advice of her father.<ref name="Sewall">{{Cite web
|url=https://www.americanantiquarian.org/sewall-intro
|title=Introduction
|last=Knoles
|first=Thomas
|work=American Antiquarian Society
|quote=She was in Watertown when Henry wrote to her with his own proposal, probably in early November ...'I wrote to H. T. that evening. I never felt so badly at sending a letter in my life.'
|date=2016
|access-date=December 17, 2021
|archive-date=June 5, 2023
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605162219/https://www.americanantiquarian.org/sewall-intro
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> ] proposed to him, but he rejected her.<ref name=sophia>{{cite web | title = "Sophia Ford: The Great Love Henry David Thoreau Didn't Want" | date = November 16, 2014 | url = https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/sophia-ford-great-love-henry-david-thoreau-never-wanted/ | publisher = ] | access-date = June 4, 2020 }}</ref>

Thoreau's sexuality has long been the subject of speculation, including by his contemporaries. Critics have called him ], ], or ].<ref name=harding/><ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/millennialseduct00quin | url-access=registration | title=Millennial Seduction | publisher=Cornell University Press | author=Quinby, Lee | page=| isbn=978-0801486012 | year=1999 }}</ref> There is no evidence to suggest he had physical relations with anyone, man or woman. Bronson Alcott wrote that Thoreau "seemed to have no temptations. All those strong wants that do battle with other men's nature, he knew not."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Harding |first1=Walter |title=Thoreau's Sexuality |url=https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Harding_Thoreau_Sexuality.pdf |publisher=State University College, Genseco, New York|pmid=1880400 }}</ref> Some scholars have suggested that homoerotic sentiments run through his writings and concluded that he was homosexual.<ref name=harding>Harding, Walter (1991). "Thoreau's Sexuality". ''Journal of Homosexuality'' 21.3. pp. 23–45.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bronski |first=Michael |title=A Queer History of the United States |publisher=Beacon Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0807044650 |page=50|title-link=A Queer History of the United States }}</ref><ref>Michael, Warner (1991). "Walden's Erotic Economy" in ''Comparative American Identities: Race, Sex and Nationality in the Modern Text''. Hortense Spillers, ed. New York: Routledge. pp. 157–173.</ref> The elegy "Sympathy" was inspired by the eleven-year-old Edmund Sewall, who had just spent five days in the Thoreau household in 1839.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Robbins|first= Paula Ivaska|title=The Natural Thoreau|journal= The Gay and Lesbian Review |date=September–October 2011|id= {{ProQuest|890209875}}}}</ref> One scholar has suggested that he wrote the poem to Edmund because he could not bring himself to write it to Edmund's sister Anna,<ref>Richardson, Robert; Moser, Barry (1986). ''Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind''. University of California Press. pp. 58–63.</ref> and another that Thoreau's "emotional experiences with women are memorialized under a camouflage of masculine pronouns",<ref>Canby, Henry Seidel (1939). ''Thoreau''. Houghton Mifflin. p. 117.</ref> but other scholars dismiss this.<ref name=harding /><ref>Katz, Jonathan Ned (1992). ''Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA''. New York: Meridian. pp. 481–492.</ref> It has been argued that the long ] in ''Walden'' to the French-Canadian woodchopper Alek Therien, which includes allusions to ], is an expression of conflicted desire.<ref>López, Robert Oscar (2007). "Thoreau, Homer and Community", in ''Henry David Thoreau''. Harold Bloom, ed. New York: Infobase Publishing. pp. 153–174.</ref> In some of Thoreau's writing there is the sense of a secret self.<ref>Summers, Claude J ''The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage'', Routledge, New York, 2002, p. 202</ref> In 1840 he writes in his journal: "My friend is the apology for my life. In him are the spaces which my orbit traverses".<ref>Bergman, David, ed. (2009). ''Gay American Autobiography: Writings From Whitman to Sedaris''. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 10</ref> Thoreau was strongly influenced by the moral reformers of his time, and this may have instilled anxiety and guilt over sexual desire.<ref>Lebeaux, Richard (1984). ''Thoreau's Seasons''. University of Massachusetts Press. p. 386, n. 31.</ref>

===Politics===
{{Green anarchism |expanded=People}}
]

Thoreau was fervently against ] and actively supported the abolitionist movement.<ref name=":6"/> He participated as a conductor in the ], delivered lectures that attacked the ], and in opposition to the popular opinion of the time, supported radical abolitionist militia leader ] and his party.<ref name=":6">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Furtak|first=Rick|title=Henry David Thoreau|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thoreau/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|access-date=July 27, 2013|archive-date=August 13, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130813055226/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thoreau/|url-status=live}}</ref> Two weeks after the ill-fated ] and in the weeks leading up to Brown's execution, Thoreau delivered a speech to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts, in which he compared the American government to ] and likened Brown's execution to the ]:

{{blockquote|Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light.<ref name="ReferenceA" />}}

In "]", Thoreau described the words and deeds of John Brown as noble and an example of heroism.<ref name=":1"> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref> In addition, he lamented the newspaper editors who dismissed Brown and his scheme as "crazy".<ref name=":1"/>

Thoreau was a proponent of ] and ]. Although he was hopeful that mankind could potentially have, through self-betterment, the kind of government which "governs not at all", he distanced himself from contemporary "no-government men" (]), writing: "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government."<ref name="resistance" />

Thoreau deemed the evolution from ] to ] to ] as "a progress toward true respect for the individual" and theorized about further improvements "towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man".<ref name="resistance" /> Echoing this belief, he went on to write: "There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."<ref name="resistance" />

It is on this basis that Thoreau could so strongly inveigh against the British administration and ] in ''A Yankee in Canada''. Despotic authority, Thoreau argued, had crushed the people's sense of ingenuity and enterprise; the Canadian ''habitants'' had been reduced, in his view, to a perpetual childlike state. Ignoring the recent rebellions, he argued that there would be no revolution in the St. Lawrence River valley.<ref name="ReferenceB"/><ref>{{cite book|last1=Thoreau|first1=Henry David|title=A Yankee in Canada|url=https://archive.org/details/yankeeincanada0000thor|url-access=registration|date=1961|publisher=Harvest House|location=Montreal|pages=}}</ref>

Although Thoreau believed resistance to unjustly exercised authority could be both violent (exemplified in his support for John Brown) and nonviolent (his own example of ] as described in "Resistance to Civil Government"), he regarded ] ] as temptation to passivity,<ref name=":4"> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref> writing: "Let not our Peace be proclaimed by the rust on our swords, or our inability to draw them from their scabbards; but let her at least have so much work on her hands as to keep those swords bright and sharp."<ref name=":4"/> Furthermore, in a formal lyceum debate in 1841, he debated the subject "Is it ever proper to offer forcible resistance?", arguing the affirmative.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130919100132/http://thoreau.eserver.org/MJF/MJF1.html |date=September 19, 2013 }} from The Thoreau Reader</ref>

Likewise, his condemnation of the ] did not stem from pacifism, but rather because he considered Mexico "unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army" as a means to expand the slave territory.<ref name=":5" />

Thoreau was ] towards ] and ]. On one hand he regarded commerce as "unexpectedly confident and serene, adventurous, and unwearied"<ref name="ReferenceA" /> and expressed admiration for its associated ], writing:

{{blockquote|I am refreshed and expanded when the freight train rattles past me, and I smell the stores which go dispensing their odors all the way from Long Wharf to Lake Champlain, reminding me of foreign parts, of coral reefs, and Indian oceans, and tropical climes, and the extent of the globe. I feel more like a citizen of the world at the sight of the palm-leaf which will cover so many flaxen New England heads the next summer<ref name="ReferenceA" />}}

On the other hand, he wrote disparagingly of the factory system:

{{blockquote|I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched.<ref name="ReferenceA" />}}

Thoreau also favored the protection of animals and wild areas, ], and taxation for schools and highways,<ref name=":6"/> and espoused views that at least in part align with what is today known as ]. He disapproved of the subjugation of Native Americans, slavery, ], ], and what can be regarded in today's terms as ], mass entertainment, and frivolous applications of technology.<ref name=":6"/>

===Intellectual interests, influences, and affinities===
====Indian sacred texts and philosophy====
Thoreau was influenced by ]. In ''Walden'', there are many overt references to the sacred texts of India. For example, in the first chapter ("Economy"), he writes: "How much more admirable the ] than all the ruins of the East!"<ref name="ReferenceA" /> ''American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia'' classes him as one of several figures who "took a more ] or ] approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world",<ref>{{Cite book |title = American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia |author = ] and ] |date = 2007 |isbn = 978-0415939263 |page = 310 |publisher = Routledge }}</ref> also a characteristic of Hinduism.

Furthermore, in "The Pond in Winter", he equates Walden Pond with the sacred ], writing:
{{blockquote|In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the ] of the Ganges.<ref name="ReferenceA" />}}

Thoreau was aware his Ganges imagery could have been factual. He wrote about ice harvesting at Walden Pond. And he knew that New England's ] were shipping ice to foreign ports, including ].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dickason|first=David G.|date=1991|title=The Nineteenth-Century Indo-American Ice Trade: An Hyperborean Epic|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/312669|journal=Modern Asian Studies|volume=25|issue=1|pages=53–89|doi=10.1017/S0026749X00015845|jstor=312669|s2cid=144932927|issn=0026-749X|access-date=April 18, 2021|archive-date=April 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418213408/https://www.jstor.org/stable/312669|url-status=live}}</ref>

Additionally, Thoreau followed various ] customs, including a diet largely consisting of rice ("It was fit that I should live on rice, mainly, who loved so well the philosophy of India."<ref name="ReferenceA" />), ] (reminiscent of the favorite musical pastime of ]),<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|last2=|last3=|first3=|date=July 12, 2020|title=Simplicity Day 2020: How Bhagavad Gita inspired American philosopher Henry David Thoreau|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/simplicity-day-2020-how-bhagwat-geeta-inspired-american-philosopher-henry-david-thoreau/articleshow/76918441.cms|url-status=live|access-date=April 18, 2021|website=Times of India|language=en|archive-date=April 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418213408/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/simplicity-day-2020-how-bhagwat-geeta-inspired-american-philosopher-henry-david-thoreau/articleshow/76918441.cms}}</ref> and ].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Davis|first=Richard H.|date=January 2018|title=Henry David Thoreau, Yogi|url=https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-4253822|journal=Common Knowledge|volume=24|issue=1|pages=56–89|doi=10.1215/0961754X-4253822|s2cid=148836840 |issn=0961-754X|via=Duke University Press}}</ref>

In an 1849 letter to his friend H.G.O. Blake, he wrote about yoga and its meaning to him:

{{blockquote|Free in this world as the birds in the air, disengaged from every kind of chains, those who practice yoga gather in Brahma the certain fruits of their works. Depend upon it that, rude and careless as I am, I would fain practice the yoga faithfully. The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to creation; he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonderful things. Divine forms traverse him without tearing him, and united to the nature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts as animating original matter. To some extent, and at rare intervals, even I am a yogi.<ref>Miller, Barbara S. "Why Did Henry David Thoreau Take the Bhagavad-Gita to Walden Pond?" ''Parabola'' 12.1 (Spring 1986): 58–63.</ref>}}

====Biology====
]. Those in the nest are of ], the other two of ].]]
Thoreau read contemporary works in the new science of biology, including the works of ], ], and ] (Charles Darwin's staunchest American ally).<ref name=":0" /> Thoreau was deeply influenced by Humboldt, especially his work ].<ref>Wulf, Andrea. ''The Invention of Nature: Alexander Humboldt's New World''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, p. 250.</ref>

In 1859, Thoreau purchased and read Darwin's '']''. Unlike many natural historians at the time, including ] who publicly opposed Darwinism in favor of a static view of nature, Thoreau was immediately enthusiastic about the theory of ] and endorsed it,<ref>Cain, William E. ''A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau''. {{ISBN|0195138635}}, p. 146.</ref> stating:

{{blockquote|1=The development theory implies a greater vital force in Nature, because it is more flexible and accommodating, and equivalent to a sort of constant new creation. (A quote from ''On the Origin of Species'' follows this sentence.)<ref name=":0">Berger, Michael Benjamin. ''Thoreau's Late Career and The Dispersion of Seeds: The Saunterer's Synoptic Vision''. {{ISBN|157113168X}}, p. 52.</ref>}}


==Influence== ==Influence==
] of Thoreau from the ] at the ].]] ] of Thoreau from the ] at the ]]]


{{blockquote|text=Thoreau's careful observations and devastating conclusions have rippled into time, becoming stronger as the weaknesses Thoreau noted have become more pronounced ... Events that seem to be completely unrelated to his stay at Walden Pond have been influenced by it, including the national park system, the British labor movement, the creation of India, the civil rights movement, the hippie revolution, the environmental movement, and the wilderness movement. Today, Thoreau's words are quoted with feeling by liberals, socialists, anarchists, libertarians, and conservatives alike.|sign=Ken Kifer|source=''Analysis and Notes on Walden: Henry Thoreau's Text with Adjacent Thoreauvian Commentary''<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060318110150/http://www.kenkifer.com/Thoreau/ |date=March 18, 2006 }} by Ken Kifer, 2002</ref>}}
Thoreau’s writings influenced many public figures. Political leaders and reformers like ], President ], civil rights activist ], Supreme Court Justice ], and ] author ] all spoke of being strongly affected by Thoreau’s work, particularly ''Civil Disobedience.'' So did many artists and authors including ], ], ], ], ], ],],<ref>Walden Pond: A History, by W. Barksdale Maynard. Oxford University Press, 2005.(pg.265) </ref> ], ]<ref>The Golden Day: A Study in American Experience and Culture by Lewis Mumford, 1926.</ref> and ] and naturalists like ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ], who ''Publisher's Weekly'' called "the modern Thoreau." <ref>Kifer, Ken ''''</ref> ] and ] ] also appreciated Thoreau and referred to him as “the greatest American anarchist.” English writer ] wrote a biography of Thoreau in 1890,which popularized Thoreau's
ideas in Britain: ], ] and ] were among those who became Thoreau
enthusiasts as a result of Salt's advocacy. <ref>Toward the Making of Thoreau's Modern Reputation,
Edited by Samuel Arthur Jones, Fritz Oehlschlaeger,and George Hendrick.University of Illinois Press, 1979 </ref>


Thoreau's political writings had little impact during his lifetime, as "his contemporaries did not see him as a theorist or as a radical", viewing him instead as a naturalist. They either dismissed or ignored his political essays, including "Civil Disobedience". The only two complete books (as opposed to essays) that were published in his lifetime, ''Walden'' and ''A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers'' (1849), both dealt with ], in which he "loved to wander".<ref name=McElroy/> His obituary was lumped in with others, rather than as a separate article, in an 1862 yearbook.<ref>{{cite book|title=Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862|date=1863|publisher=D. Appleton & Company|location=New York|page=666|url=https://archive.org/stream/1862appletonsan02newyuoft#page/n673/mode/1up}}</ref> Critics and the public continued either to disdain or to ignore Thoreau for years, but the publication of extracts from his journal in the 1880s by his friend H.G.O. Blake, and of a definitive set of Thoreau's works by the ] between 1893 and 1906, led to the rise of what ] ] called a "Thoreau cult".<ref name=Pattee></ref>
Mahatma Gandhi first read ''Walden'' in 1906 while working as a civil rights activist in ], ]. He told American reporter ], " ideas influenced me greatly. I adopted some of them and recommended the study of Thoreau to all of my friends who were helping me in the cause of Indian Independence. Why I actually took the name of my movement from Thoreau's essay 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,' written about 80&nbsp;years ago."<ref>Miller, Webb. I Found No Peace. Garden City, 1938. 238-239</ref>


Thoreau's writings went on to influence many public figures. Political leaders and reformers like ], U.S. President ], American civil rights activist ], U.S. Supreme Court Justice ], and ] author ] all spoke of being strongly affected by Thoreau's work, particularly "Civil Disobedience", as did "] theorist ] devoted an entire issue of his monthly, ''Analysis'', to an appreciation of Thoreau".<ref name=Rothbard>]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150618045209/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard77.html |date=June 18, 2015 }}, '']'', VI, 4, June 15, 1968</ref>
Martin Luther King, Jr. noted in his autobiography that his first encounter with the idea of non-violent resistance was reading "On Civil Disobedience" in 1944 while attending ]. He wrote in his autobiography that it was <blockquote>Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.</blockquote>


Thoreau also influenced many artists and authors including ], ], ], ], ], ], ],<ref>Maynard, W. Barksdale, ''Walden Pond: A History''. Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 265</ref> ], ],<ref>Mumford, Lewis, ''The Golden Day: A Study in American Experience and Culture''. Boni and Liveright, 1926. pp. 56–59,</ref> ], ],<ref>Posey, Alexander. ''Lost Creeks: Collected Journals''. (Edited by Matthew Wynn Sivils) University of Nebraska Press, 2009. p. 38</ref> and ].<ref>Saunders, Barry. ''A Complex Fate: Gustav Stickley and the Craftsman Movement''. Preservation Press, 1996. p. 4</ref> Thoreau also influenced naturalists like ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ], who ''Publishers Weekly'' called "the modern Thoreau".<ref>Kifer, Ken '' {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060318110150/http://www.kenkifer.com/Thoreau/ |date=March 18, 2006 }}''</ref>
<blockquote>I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.<ref>King, M.L. '''' chapter two</ref></blockquote>


Thoreau's friend ] published his first biography, ''Thoreau the Poet-Naturalist'', in 1873.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Channing|first1=William Ellery|url=http://archive.org/details/poetnatthoreau00chanrich|title=Thoreau, the poet-naturalist, with Memorial verses|last2=Merrymount Press|last3=Sanborn|first3=F. B. (Franklin Benjamin)|last4=Updike|first4=Daniel Berkeley|date=1902|publisher=Boston, C. E. Goodspeed|others=University of California Libraries}}</ref> English writer ] wrote a biography of Thoreau in 1890, which popularized Thoreau's ideas in Britain: ], ], and ] were among those who became Thoreau enthusiasts as a result of Salt's advocacy.<ref>Hendrick, George and Oehlschlaeger, Fritz (eds.) ''Toward the Making of Thoreau's Modern Reputation'', University of Illinois Press, 1979.</ref>
The ]'s ] is an experiential literature and writing program run through the university's Department of English Language and Literature which was started in the 1970s by professors Alan Howes and Walter Clark. Howes and Clark called upon Thoreauvian ideals of nature, independence and community to create an academic program modeled after Thoreau's experiment at Walden Pond. Today, students at NELP study Thoreau's work{{ndash}} as well as that of several other New England writers from the 19th and 20th centuries{{ndash}} in relative isolation on ] in ].


] first read ''Walden'' in 1906, while working as a civil rights activist in ], South Africa. Gandhi first read "]" while he sat in a South African prison for the crime of nonviolently protesting discrimination against the ] population in the ]. The essay galvanized Gandhi, who wrote and published a synopsis of Thoreau's argument, calling what he termed its "incisive logic ... unanswerable" and referring to Thoreau as "one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced."<ref>] (May 4, 2011) {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140913214409/http://mises.org/daily/5250/Here-the-State-Is-Nowhere-to-Be-Seen |date=September 13, 2014 }}, ]</ref><ref>"Although he was practicing civil disobedience before he read Thoreau's essay, Gandhi was quick to point out the debt he owed to Thoreau and other thinkers like him". Shawn Chandler Bingham, ''Thoreau and the sociological imagination : the wilds of society''. Lanham, Md. : Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0742560581}} p. 31.</ref> He told American reporter ], " ideas influenced me greatly. I adopted some of them and recommended the study of Thoreau to all of my friends who were helping me in the cause of ]. Why I actually took the name of my movement from Thoreau's essay 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience', written about 80 years ago."<ref>Miller, Webb. I Found No Peace. Garden City, 1938. 238–239</ref>
American psychologist B. F. Skinner wrote that he carried a copy of Thoreau's ''Walden'' with him in his youth.<ref>Skinner, B. F., ''A Matter of Consequences''</ref> and, in 1945, wrote '']'', a fictional utopia about 1,000 members of a community living together inspired by the life of Thoreau.<ref>Skinner, B. F., ''Walden Two'' (1948)</ref>


] noted in his autobiography that his first encounter with the idea of nonviolent resistance was reading "On Civil Disobedience" in 1944 while attending ]. He wrote in his autobiography that it was,
Thoreau inspired children's book author and illustrator D.B. Johnson to create a series of picture books based on Thoreau. The first book '']'' has become a bestseller.{{Citation needed|date=June 2008}}


<blockquote>Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times. I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters; a freedom ride into Mississippi; a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia; a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama; these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.<ref>King, M.L. '' {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070308023614/http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/autobiography/chp_2.htm |date=March 8, 2007 }}'' chapter two</ref></blockquote>
Thoreau and his fellow ] from ] were a major inspiration of the composer ]. The 4th movement of the ] for piano (with a part for flute, Thoreau's instrument) is a character picture and he also set Thoreau's words.{{Citation needed|date=February 2009}}


American psychologist ] wrote that he carried a copy of Thoreau's ''Walden'' with him in his youth.<ref>Skinner, B. F., ''A Matter of Consequences''</ref> In '']'' (published in 1948), Skinner wrote about a fictional ] of about 1,000 members inspired by the life of Henry Thoreau.<ref>Skinner, B. F., ''Walden Two'' (1948)</ref> Thoreau and his fellow ] from ] were also a major inspiration for the American composer ], whose 1915 ], known as the ''Concord Sonata'', features "impressionistic pictures of Emerson and Thoreau", and includes a part for flute, Thoreau's instrument, in its 4th movement.<ref>Burkholder, James Peter. ''Charles Ives and His World.'' Princeton University Press, 1996 (pp. 50–51)</ref>
== Critique ==
{{Thoreauviana}}
Thoreau’s ideas were not universally applauded by some of his contemporaries in literary circles.


Actor ] did a dramatic portrayal of Henry David Thoreau in the 1976 ] television series '']''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Tele-Vues, Sunday, June 6, 1976|date=June 6, 1976|work=]|location=]|page=170|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/30664120/|access-date=October 27, 2015|archive-date=November 5, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105214432/https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/30664120/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|date=June 5, 1976|work=]|title=TV Log|location=]|page=10|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/15447614/|access-date=October 27, 2015|archive-date=September 29, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150929050424/http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/15447614/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite video|work=]|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FdGBFTxkHY |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/3FdGBFTxkHY| archive-date=December 11, 2021 |url-status=live|title=Actor Ron Thompson as Henry David Thoreau in The Rebels|date=June 6, 1976}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
<!-- IS THIS QUOTE REALLY REPRESENTATIVE OF SANBORN'S OPINIONS? THE FACT THAT HE DEVOTED A CHAPTER IN HIS BIOGRAPHY OF THOREAU TO HIS PHILOSOPHY SEEMS TO INDICATE OTHERWISE.
] saw nothing in Thoreau's philosophy, referring to it as "not worth a straw".<ref>Sanborn, F.B. ''Henry D. Thoreau'' p. 197; the letter containing this quote is dated 30 April 1855, from when Sanborn was a college student and before their friendship and abolitionist comradery developed</ref> Meanwhile, -->Scottish author ] judged Thoreau’s endorsement of living alone in natural simplicity, apart from modern society, to be a mark of effeminacy:


Thoreau's ideas have impacted and resonated with various strains in the ] movement, with ] referring to him as "the greatest American anarchist".<ref>{{cite book|author=Goldman, Emma|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_U5ZYAAAAMAAJ|title=Anarchism and Other Essays|publisher=Mother Earth Publishing Association|page=|year=1917|author-link = Emma Goldman}}</ref> ] and ] in particular have both derived inspiration and ecological points-of-view from the writings of Thoreau. ] included Thoreau's text "Excursions" (1863) in his edited compilation of works in the anarcho-primitivist tradition titled ''Against civilization: Readings and reflections''.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.amazon.fr/dp/toc/0922915989|title=Against Civilization: Readings And Reflections|first=John|last=Zerzan|via=Amazon|access-date=December 13, 2017|archive-date=August 7, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807043841/https://www.amazon.fr/dp/toc/0922915989|url-status=live}}</ref> Additionally, ], the founder of ], has opined that Thoreau was one of the "great intellectual heroes" of his movement.<ref name="Rothbard" /> Thoreau was also an important influence on late 19th-century ] ].<ref name="naturismolibertario">{{Cite web|url=http://www.soliobrera.org/pdefs/cuaderno4.pdf#search=%22Antonia%20Maym%C3%B3n%22|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160102181805/http://www.soliobrera.org/pdefs/cuaderno4.pdf|url-status=dead|title=El naturismo libertario en la Península Ibérica (1890–1939) by Jose Maria Rosello|archivedate=January 2, 2016}}</ref><ref name="ortega">{{cite web|url=https://www.naturismo.org/adn/ediciones/2003/invierno/7e.html|title=Anarchism, Nudism, Naturism|first=Carlos|last=Ortega|access-date=July 20, 2018|archive-date=September 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200909150845/https://www.naturismo.org/adn/ediciones/2003/invierno/7e.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Globally, Thoreau's concepts also held importance within ] circles<ref name="spanishind">{{Cite web|url=http://www.acracia.org/xdiez.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060526224800/http://www.acracia.org/xdiez.html|url-status=dead|title="La insumisión voluntaria. El anarquismo individualista Español durante la dictadura y la segunda República (1923–1938)" by Xavier Diez|archivedate=May 26, 2006}}</ref><ref name="aujourdhui">"Les anarchistes individualistes du début du siècle l'avaient bien compris, et intégraient le naturisme dans leurs préoccupations. Il est vraiment dommage que ce discours se soit peu à peu effacé, d'antan plus que nous assistons, en ce moment, à un retour en force du puritanisme (conservateur par essence)." {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090225212442/http://ytak.club.fr/natytak.html |date=February 25, 2009 }}</ref> in Spain,<ref name="naturismolibertario" /><ref name="ortega" /><ref name="spanishind" /> France,<ref name="spanishind" /><ref name="france"> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014165702/http://ytak.club.fr/natbiblioarmand.html |date=October 14, 2008 }}</ref> and Portugal.<ref name="portugal">Freire, João. "Anarchisme et naturisme au Portugal, dans les années 1920" in ''Les anarchistes du Portugal''. </ref>
<blockquote>…Thoreau’s content and ecstasy in living was, we may say, like a plant that he had watered and tended with womanish solicitude; for there is apt to be something unmanly, something almost dastardly, in a life that does not move with dash and freedom, and that fears the bracing contact of the world. In one word, Thoreau was a skulker. He did not wish virtue to go out of him among his fellow-men, but slunk into a corner to hoard it for himself. He left all for the sake of certain virtuous self-indulgences.<ref>Stevenson, Robert Louis. . Cornhill Magazine. June 1880.</ref></blockquote>


For the 200th anniversary of his birth, publishers released several new editions of his work: a recreation of ''Walden''{{'s}} 1902 edition with illustrations, a picture book with excerpts from ''Walden'', and an annotated collection of Thoreau's essays on slavery.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Williams |first1=John |title=Alcoholism in America |work=] |date=July 7, 2017 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/books/review/alcoholism-in-america.html |issn=0362-4331 |access-date=August 23, 2017 |archive-date=August 4, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170804204030/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/books/review/alcoholism-in-america.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Thoreau on May 23, 2017, in Concord, MA.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://stamps.org/US-New-Issues-2017|title=American Philatelic Society|website=stamps.org|access-date=August 10, 2018|archive-date=August 6, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180806210814/https://stamps.org/US-New-Issues-2017|url-status=live}}</ref>
Poet ] detested what he deemed to be the message of ''Walden'', decreeing that Thoreau wanted man to "lower himself to the level of a ] and walk on four legs." He went further to castigate the work as "very wicked and heathenish", remarking "I prefer walking on two legs."<ref>Wagenknecht, Edward. ''John Greenleaf Whittier: A Portrait in Paradox''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967: 112.</ref>


==Critical reception==
In response to such criticisms, English novelist ], writing for the '']'', characterized such critics as uninspired and narrow-minded:
Thoreau's work and career received little attention from his contemporaries until 1865, when the '']'' published ]'s review of various papers of Thoreau's that Emerson had collected and edited.<ref>Pattee, ''A History of American Literature Since 1870'', pp.137–138.</ref> Lowell's essay, ''Letters to Various Persons'',<ref name=NAR></ref> which he republished as a chapter in his book, ''My Study Windows'',<ref name=Lowell></ref> derided Thoreau as a humorless ] trafficking in commonplaces, a ] lacking in imagination, a "] in his barrel", resentfully criticizing what he could not attain.<ref name="Pattee, p.138">Pattee, ''A History of American Literature Since 1870'', p.138.</ref> Lowell's caustic analysis influenced Scottish author ],<ref name="Pattee, p.138"/> who criticized Thoreau as a "skulker", saying "He did not wish virtue to go out of him among his fellow-men, but slunk into a corner to hoard it for himself."<ref name="RLS">{{Cite web |url=http://thoreau.eserver.org/stevens1.html
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061012063926/http://thoreau.eserver.org/stevens1.html
|archive-date=October 12, 2006
|title=Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions
|author=Stevenson, Robert Louis |work=Cornhill Magazine
|quote=Now Thoreau's content and ecstasy in living was, we may say, like a plant that he had watered and tended with womanish solicitude; for there is apt to be something unmanly, something almost dastardly, in a life that does not move with dash and freedom, and that fears the bracing contact of the world. In one word, Thoreau was a skulker
|date=1880 |access-date=December 3, 2021}}</ref>


] had mixed feelings about Thoreau. He noted that "He is a keen and delicate observer of nature—a genuine observer—which, I suspect, is almost as rare a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for his love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and shows him secrets which few others are allowed to witness."<ref>Nathaniel Hawthorne, ''Passages From the American Note-Books'', entry for September 2, 1842.</ref> On the other hand, he also wrote that Thoreau "repudiated all regular modes of getting a living, and seems inclined to lead a sort of Indian life among civilized men".<ref>Hawthorne, ''The Heart of Hawthorne's Journals'', p. 106.</ref><ref>Borst, Raymond R. ''The Thoreau Log: A Documentary Life of Henry David Thoreau, 1817–1862.'' New York: G.K. Hall, 1992.</ref>
<blockquote>People{{ndash}} very wise in their own eyes{{ndash}} who would have every man’s life ordered according to a particular pattern, and who are intolerant of every existence the utility of which is not palpable to them, may pooh-pooh Mr. Thoreau and this episode in his history, as unpractical and dreamy.<ref> ], Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1933), pp. 733-746</ref></blockquote>


In a similar vein, poet ] detested what he deemed to be the "wicked" and "heathenish" message of ''Walden'', claiming that Thoreau wanted man to "lower himself to the level of a ] and walk on four legs".<ref>Wagenknecht, Edward. ''John Greenleaf Whittier: A Portrait in Paradox''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967: 112.</ref>
Modern historian Richard Zacks pokes fun at Thoreau, writing:


In response to such criticisms, the English novelist ], writing decades later for the '']'', characterized such critics as uninspired and narrow-minded:
{{bquote|Thoreau's 'Walden, or Life in the Woods' deserves its status as a great American book but let it be known that Nature Boy went home on weekends to raid the family cookie jar. While living the simple life in the woods, Thoreau walked into nearby Concord, Mass., almost every day. And his mom, who lived less than two miles away, delivered goodie baskets filled with meals, pies and doughnuts every Saturday. The more one reads in Thoreau's unpolished journal of his stay in the woods, the more his sojourn resembles suburban boys going to their tree-house in the backyard and pretending they're camping in the heart of the jungle.<ref> Zacks, Richard. An Underground Education, Doubleday Publishing. 1997, p19. </ref>}}
{{blockquote|text=People—very wise in their own eyes—who would have every man's life ordered according to a particular pattern, and who are intolerant of every existence the utility of which is not palpable to them, may pooh-pooh Mr. Thoreau and this episode in his history, as unpractical and dreamy.<ref>'']'', Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1933), pp. 733–746</ref>}}


Thoreau himself also responded to the criticism in a paragraph of his work ''Walden'' by highlighting what he felt was the irrelevance of their inquiries:
==Works==

*'']'' (1840)
{{blockquote|text=I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. ... Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; ... I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.<ref>Thoreau ''Walden'' (1854)</ref>}}
*'']'' (1840)

*'']'' (1842)
Recent criticism has accused Thoreau of hypocrisy, ], and being ], based on his writings in ''Walden'',<ref name=neworker1>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum |title=Henry David Thoreau, Hypocrite |last1=Schultz |first1=Kathryn |date=October 19, 2015 |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=October 19, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151019170355/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum |archive-date=October 19, 2015 }}</ref> although these criticisms have been regarded as highly selective.<ref name=medium1>{{cite web|url=https://medium.com/@TheNewThoreau/why-do-we-love-thoreau-because-he-was-right-175251814c |title=Why do we love Thoreau? Because he was right. |date=October 19, 2015 |publisher=Medium |access-date=October 19, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151019170355/https://medium.com/%40TheNewThoreau/why-do-we-love-thoreau-because-he-was-right-175251814c |archive-date=October 19, 2015 }}</ref><ref name=newrepublic>{{cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/123151/defense-thoreau |title=Henry David Thoreau's Radical Optimism |first1=Jonathan |last1=Malesic |date=October 19, 2015 |magazine=New Republic |access-date=October 19, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151019204535/http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123151/defense-thoreau |archive-date=October 19, 2015 }}</ref><ref name=newrepublic2>{{cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/123162/everybody-hates-henry-david-thoreau |title=Everybody Hates Henry |first1=Donovan |last1=Hohn |date=October 21, 2015 |magazine=New Republic |access-date=October 21, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151026134755/http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123162/everybody-hates-henry-david-thoreau |archive-date=October 26, 2015 }}</ref>
*'']'' (1843)

*''The Landlord'' (1843)<ref> from ]</ref><ref> from ]</ref>
==Selected works==
*'']'' (1844)
Many of Thoreau's works were not published during his lifetime, including his journals and numerous unfinished manuscripts.
*'']'' (1844)
* ''"Aulus Persius Flaccus"'' (1840)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*'']'' (1845)
*'']'' (1846-8) * '']'' (1840)<ref name=":4" />
* "]" (1842)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*'']'' (1847)
* "]" (1843)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*'']'' (1849)<ref> from ]</ref>
* "The Landlord" (1843)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://collections.library.cornell.edu/moa_new/browse.html?frames=1&cite=http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=AGD1642-0013-6&coll=moa&root=/moa/usde/usde0013/&tif=00445.TIF&view=100|title=Browse &#124; Cornell University Library Making of America Collection|website=collections.library.cornell.edu}}</ref>
*'']'', or ''Civil Disobedience'' (1849)<ref> from the ]</ref>
* "]" (1844)
*''An Excursion to Canada'' (1853)<ref> from ]</ref>
* "]" (1844)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*'']'' (1854)
* "]" (1845)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*'']'' (1854)
*'']'' (1859) * "]" (1846–48)
* "]" (1847)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*'']'' (1859)
* '']'' (1849)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?title=A+Week+on+the+Concord+and+Merrimack+Rivers&tmode=start&c=x|title=A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers from Project Gutenberg|access-date=December 22, 2018|archive-date=December 23, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181223073558/https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?title=A+Week+on+the+Concord+and+Merrimack+Rivers&tmode=start&c=x|url-status=live}}</ref>
*'']'' (1860)
* "]", or "Civil Disobedience"", or "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"" (1849)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/aestheticpapers00peabrich|title=Aesthetic papers|first1=Elizabeth Palmer|last1=Peabody|first2=Ralph Waldo|last2=Emerson|first3=Nathaniel|last3=Hawthorne|first4=Henry David|last4=Thoreau|date=January 1, 1849|publisher=Boston, : The editor; New York, : G.P. Putnam|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
*'']'' (1861)<ref> from ]</ref><ref> from ]</ref>
* "An Excursion to Canada" (1853)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110617002714/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/A_Yankee_in_Canada |date=June 17, 2011 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*''Autumnal Tints'' (1862)<ref> from ]</ref>
* "]" (1854)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*''Wild Apples: The History of the Apple Tree'' (1862)<ref> from ]</ref><ref> from ]</ref>
* '']'' (1854)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100926152652/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Walden |date=September 26, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*''Excursions'' (1863)<ref> from the ]</ref>
* "]" (1859)<ref name=":3"> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*'']'' (1863)<ref> from ]</ref><ref> from ]</ref>
* "]" (1859)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*''Night and Moonlight'' (1863)<ref> from ]</ref><ref> from ]</ref>
* "]" (1860)<ref name=":1" />
*''The Highland Light'' (1864)<ref> from ]</ref>
* "]" (1862)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=Thoreau&amode=words&title=Walking&tmode=start&c=x|title=Walking|access-date=December 22, 2018|archive-date=December 23, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181223073511/https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=Thoreau&amode=words&title=Walking&tmode=start&c=x|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''The Maine Woods'' (1864)<ref> from The Thoreau Reader</ref><ref> from The ]</ref>
* "Autumnal Tints" (1862)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101222023007/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Essays |date=December 22, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
*''Cape Cod'' (1865)<ref> from The Thoreau Reader</ref>
* "Wild Apples: The History of the Apple Tree" (1862)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=4066|title=Wild Apples, from Project Gutenberg|access-date=November 6, 2003|archive-date=December 26, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071226192031/http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=4066|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Letters to Various Persons'' (1865)<ref> from the ]</ref>
* "The Fall of the Leaf" (1863)<ref name=":5">{{cite web|url=http://www.walden.org/Library/About_Thoreau%27s_Life_and_Writings:_The_Research_Collections/Civil_Disobedience |work=Walden.org |title=The Walden Woods Project |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160620124518/http://www.walden.org/Library/About_Thoreau%27s_Life_and_Writings%3A_The_Research_Collections/Civil_Disobedience |archive-date=June 20, 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|date=1863|publisher=]|pages=407–408|title=The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: Excursions, translations, and poems|author1=Henry David Thoreau|author2=Bradford Torrey|author3=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wpA9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA407|access-date=November 16, 2015|archive-date=April 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414235017/https://books.google.com/books?id=wpA9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA407|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers'' (1866)<ref> from the ]</ref>
* '']'' (1863)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/excursionhenry00thorrich|title=Excursions|first1=Henry David|last1=Thoreau|date=1863|location=Boston|publisher=Ticknor and Fields|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
*''Early Spring in Massachusetts'' (1881)
* "]" (1863)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABK2934-0012-65|title=The Atlantic Monthly Volume 0012 Issue 71 (September 1863)|access-date=March 2, 2008|archive-date=July 7, 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120707023632/http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABK2934-0012-65|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Summer'' (1884)<ref> from the ]</ref>
* "Night and Moonlight" (1863)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABK2934-0012-77|title=The Atlantic Monthly Volume 0012 Issue 72 (November 1863)|access-date=March 2, 2008|archive-date=July 8, 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120708171335/http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABK2934-0012-77|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Winter'' (1888)<ref> from the ]</ref>
* "The Highland Light" (1864)<ref name="u of adelaide">{{cite web|title=Henry David Thoreau, 1817–1862|url=http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/thoreau/henry_david/|website=ebooks.adelaide.edu|publisher=The University of Adelaide|access-date=January 1, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170824024207/https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/thoreau/henry_david/|archive-date=August 24, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>
*''Autumn'' (1892)<ref> from the ]</ref>
* "The Maine Woods" (1864)<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080811060820/http://thoreau.eserver.org/mewoods.html |date=August 11, 2008 }} from The Thoreau Reader</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/mainewoods00thorrich|title=The Maine woods|first1=Henry David|last1=Thoreau|first2=Sophia E.|last2=Thoreau|first3=William Ellery|last3=Channing|date=January 1, 1864|publisher=Boston, Ticknor and Fields|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Fully Annotated Edition. ], ed., Yale University Press, 2009
*''Misellanies'' (1894)
* "Cape Cod" (1865)<ref name=":9">{{cite web|url=http://thoreau.eserver.org/capecd00.html|title=Thoreau's Cape Cod – an annotated edition|first=Richard|last=Lenat|access-date=September 2, 2008|archive-date=August 22, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080822133026/http://thoreau.eserver.org/capecd00.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau'' (1894)<ref> the ]</ref>
* "Letters to Various Persons" (1865)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/lettersvarpersons00thorrich|title=Letters to various persons|first=Henry David|last=Thoreau|date=January 1, 1865|publisher=Boston : Ticknor and Fields|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
*''Poems of Nature'' (1895)
* '']'' (1866)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/yankeeincanada00thorrich|title=A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers|first=Henry David|last=Thoreau|date=January 1, 1866|publisher=Boston, Ticknor and Fields|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
*''Some Unpublished Letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau'' (1898)
* "Early Spring in Massachusetts" (1881)
*''The First and Last Journeys of Thoreau'' (1905)<ref> from the ]</ref><ref> from the ]</ref>
* "Summer" (1884)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/summerjournal00thorrich|title=Summer : from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau|first1=Henry David|last1=Thoreau|first2=H. G. O. (Harrison Gray Otis)|last2=Blake|date=January 1, 1884|publisher=London : T. Fisher Unwin|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
*''Journal of Henry David Thoreau'' (1906)<ref></ref></div>
* "Winter" (1888)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/winterjournal00thorrich|title=Winter : from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau|first1=Henry David|last1=Thoreau|first2=H. G. O.|last2=Blake|date=January 1, 1888|publisher=Boston : Houghton, Mifflin|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
* "Autumn" (1892)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/autumnjournal00thorrich|title=Autumn. From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau|first1=Henry David|last1=Thoreau|first2=Harrison Gray Otis|last2=Blake|publisher=Boston, Houghton, Mifflin|via=Internet Archive|date=December 3, 1892}}</ref>
* ''Miscellanies'' (1894)<ref> from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
* ''Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau'' (1894)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/familiarletters00thorrich|title=Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau|first1=Henry David|last1=Thoreau|first2=F. B. (Franklin Benjamin)|last2=Sanborn|date=January 1, 1894|publisher=Boston : Houghton, Mifflin|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
* ''Poems of Nature'' (1895)<ref name="u of adelaide" />
* ''Some Unpublished Letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau'' (1898)<ref name="u of adelaide" />
* ''The First and Last Journeys of Thoreau'' (1905)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/firstlastjourneys01thorrich|title=The first and last journeys of Thoreau : lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts|first1=Henry David|last1=Thoreau|first2=Mass )|last2=Bibliophile Society (Boston|first3=Mass )|last3=Bibliophile Society (Boston|first4=F. B. (Franklin Benjamin)|last4=Sanborn|date=January 1, 1905|publisher=Boston : Printed exclusively for members of the Bibliophile Society|via=Internet Archive}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/firstlastjourneys02thorrich|title=The first and last journeys of Thoreau : lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts|first1=Henry David|last1=Thoreau|first2=Mass )|last2=Bibliophile Society (Boston|first3=Mass )|last3=Bibliophile Society (Boston)|first4=F. B. (Franklin Benjamin)|last4=Sanborn|date=January 1, 1905|publisher=Boston : Printed exclusively for members of the Bibliophile Society|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
* ''Journal of Henry David Thoreau'' (1906)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100505210829/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Journal |date=May 5, 2010 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
* ''The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau'' edited by Walter Harding and Carl Bode (Washington Square: New York University Press, 1958)<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110617003655/http://www.walden.org/Library/The_Writings_of_Henry_David_Thoreau%3A_The_Digital_Collection/Correspondence |date=June 17, 2011 }} from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau: The Digital Collection</ref>
* "I Was Made Erect and Lone"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/184857|title=I Was Made Erect and Lone|date=December 3, 2018|access-date=December 13, 2012|archive-date=February 15, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120215180100/http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/184857|url-status=live}}</ref>
* "The Bluebird Carries the Sky on His Back" (Stanyan, 1970)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://medium.com/@alpharust/the-bluebird-carries-the-sky-on-his-back-ac96daf58a4d|title=The bluebird carries the sky on his back|last=Rastogi|first=Gaurav|date=May 11, 2015|website=Medium|language=en|access-date=January 15, 2020|archive-date=January 15, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200115123427/https://medium.com/@alpharust/the-bluebird-carries-the-sky-on-his-back-ac96daf58a4d|url-status=live}}</ref>
* "The Dispersion of Seeds" published as ''Faith in a Seed'' (Island Press, 1993)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/faithinseeddispe00thor|title=Faith in a Seed: The Dispersion of Seeds and Other Late Natural History Writings|last=Thoreau|first=Henry David|year=1996|publisher=Island Press|isbn=978-1559631822|access-date=January 29, 2018|url-access=registration}}</ref>
* ''The Indian Notebooks'' (1847–1861)
* ''Wild Fruits'' (Unfinished at his death, W.W. Norton, 1999)<ref>{{Cite book|last=Thoreau|first=Henry David |title=Wild fruits: Thoreau's rediscovered last manuscript |date=2000 |publisher=W.W. Norton |editor=Bradley P. Dean |isbn=0-393-04751-2 |edition=1st |location=New York |oclc=41404600}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Richard|first=Frances|title=Thoreau's "Wild Fruits" {{!}} Frances Richard|url=http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/23/richard.php|access-date=April 11, 2021|website=cabinetmagazine.org|language=en|archive-date=April 24, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210424050556/https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/23/richard.php|url-status=live}}</ref>


==See also== ==See also==
* ] * ]
* ] * ]
* ]
* ]
* ]


== References == ==References==
{{reflist|2}} {{Reflist|30em}}


==Further reading== ==Further reading==
{{Refbegin}}
*Bode, Carl. ''Best of Thoreau's Journals''. Southern Illinois University Press. 1967.
* Balthrop‐Lewis, Alda. "Exemplarist Environmental Ethics: Thoreau's Political Ascetism against Solution Thinking." ''Journal of Religious Ethics'' 47.3 (2019): 525–550.
*Botkin, Daniel. ''No Man's Garden''.
*Dassow, Laura. ''Seeing New Worlds: Henry David Thoreau and 19th Century Science''. University of Wisconsin. 1995. ISBN 0299147444 * ]. ''Best of Thoreau's Journals''. Southern Illinois University Press. 1967.
* Botkin, Daniel. ''No Man's Garden''
*Dean, Bradley P. ed., ''Letters to a Spiritual Seeker''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
* Buell, Lawrence. ''The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture'' (Harvard UP, 1995)
*Harding, Walter. ''The Days of Henry Thoreau''. Princeton University Press, 1982.
* Cafaro, Philip. ''Thoreau's Living Ethics: "Walden" and the Pursuit of Virtue'' (U of Georgia Press, 2004)
*Hendrix, George. The Influence of Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" on Gandhi's Satyagraha. The New England Quarterly. 1956.
* ]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914003039/https://mises.org/daily/5033/The-Disarming-Honesty-of-Henry-David-Thoreau |date=September 14, 2014 }}
* Howarth, William. ''The Book of Concord: Thoreau's Life as a Writer''. Viking Press, 1982.
* Conrad, Randall. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061012062735/http://thoreau.eserver.org/whowhy.html |date=October 12, 2006 }}
* Myerson, Joel et al. ''The Cambridge Companion to Henry David Thoreau''. Cambridge University Press. 1995.
* Nash, Roderick. ''Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher''. * Cramer, Jeffrey S. ''Solid Seasons: The Friendship of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson'' (Counterpoint Press, 2019).
* Dean, Bradley P. ed., ''Letters to a Spiritual Seeker''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
* Parrington, Vernon. ''''. V 2 online. 1927.
* Finley, James S., ed. ''Henry David Thoreau in Context'' (Cambridge UP, 2017).
* Petroski, Henry. ''H. D. Thoreau, Engineer''. American Heritage of Invention and Technology, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp.&nbsp;8–16.
* Furtak, Rick, Ellsworth, Jonathan, and Reid, James D., eds. ''Thoreau's Importance for Philosophy''. New York: Fordham University Press, 2012.
* Richardson, Robert D. ''Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind''. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1986. ISBN 0520063465
* Gionfriddo, Michael. "Thoreau, the Work of Breathing, and Building Castles in the Air: Reading Walden's 'Conclusion'." ''The Concord Saunterer'' 25 (2017): 49–90 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417023523/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44652797 |date=April 17, 2021 }}.
*Thoreau, Henry David. ''A Week, Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod'' (Robert F. Sayre, ed.) (], 1985) ISBN 0940450275
* Guhr, Sebastian. ''Mr. Lincoln & Mr. Thoreau''. S. Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2021.
*Thoreau, Henry David. ''Collected Essays and Poems'' (Elizabeth Hall Witherell, ed.) (], 2001) ISBN 9781883011956
* Harding, Walter. ''The Days of Henry Thoreau''. Princeton University Press, 1982.
*Thoreau, Henry David. ''The Price of Freedom: Excerpts from Thoreau’s Journals'' ISBN 9781434805522
* Hendrick, George. "The Influence of Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience' on Gandhi's Satyagraha." ''The New England Quarterly'' 29, no. 4 (December 1956). 462–471.
* {{Cite journal |last1=Hess |first1=Scott |title=Walden Pond as Thoreau's Landscape of Genius |journal=Nineteenth-Century Literature |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=224–250 |date=2019 |language=en |doi=10.1525/ncl.2019.74.2.224 |s2cid=204481348 |issn=0891-9356 }}
* Howarth, William. ''The Book of Concord: Thoreau's Life as a Writer''. Viking Press, 1982
* Judd, Richard W. ''Finding Thoreau: The Meaning of Nature in the Making of an Environmental Icon'' (2018) {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723101739/https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Thoreau-Meaning-Nature-Environmental/dp/1625343884 |date=July 23, 2021 }}
* McGregor, Robert Kuhn. ''A Wider View of the Universe: Henry Thoreau's Study of Nature'' (U of Illinois Press, 1997).
* ]. ''Thoreau: His Home, Friends and Books''. New York: AMS Press. 1969
* ] et al. ''The Cambridge Companion to Henry David Thoreau''. Cambridge University Press. 1995
* Nash, Roderick. ''Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher''
* Paolucci, Stefano. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210827194255/https://www.academia.edu/16692328/The_Foundations_of_Thoreaus_Castles_in_the_Air_ |date=August 27, 2021 }}, ''Thoreau Society Bulletin'', No. 290 (Summer 2015), 10. (See also the of the same article.)
* Parrington, Vernon. '' {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901091713/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/Parrington/vol2/bk03_03_ch03.html |date=September 1, 2006 }}''. V 2 online. 1927
* Parrington, Vernon L. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070612042458/http://thoreau.eserver.org/currents.html |date=June 12, 2007 }}
* Petroski, Henry. "H. D. Thoreau, Engineer." ''American Heritage of Invention and Technology'', Vol. 5, No. 2, pp.&nbsp;8–16
* Petrulionis, Sandra Harbert, ed., ''Thoreau in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn From Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates.'' Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2012. {{ISBN|1-60938-087-8}}
* ] ''Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind''. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1986. {{ISBN|0-520-06346-5}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Riggenbach |first=Jeff |title=Thoreau, Henry David (1817–1862) |editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |date=2008 |publisher=]; ] |location=] |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n309 |isbn=978-1412965804 |oclc=750831024 |lccn=2008009151 |pages=506–507 |access-date=June 20, 2015 |archive-date=September 30, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930100756/https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC%2F |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite journal|last=Riggenbach|first=Jeff|title=Henry David Thoreau: Founding Father of American Libertarian Thought|journal=Mises Daily|date=July 15, 2010|url=https://mises.org/daily/4562/Henry-David-Thoreau-Founding-Father-of-American-Libertarian-Thought|access-date=September 13, 2014|archive-date=September 14, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914000502/https://mises.org/daily/4562/Henry-David-Thoreau-Founding-Father-of-American-Libertarian-Thought|url-status=live}}
* Ridl, Jack. " {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210827194541/https://www.facebook.com/v2.3/plugins/share_button.php?app_id=249643311490&channel=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fx%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2F%3Fversion%3D46%23cb%3Df1bcdc517dd912c%26domain%3Dmagazine.scintillapress.com%26is_canvas%3Dfalse%26origin%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fmagazine.scintillapress.com%252Ff3686018c8f8d2%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=0&href=http%3A%2F%2Fmagazine.scintillapress.com%2Fmoose-indian.html&layout=button_count&locale=en_US&sdk=joey |date=August 27, 2021 }}" Scintilla (poem on Thoreau's last words)
* Schneider, Richard ''Civilizing Thoreau: Human Ecology and the Emerging Social Sciences in the Major Works'' ]. Camden House. 2016. {{ISBN|978-1-57113-960-3}}
* Smith, David C. "The Transcendental Saunterer: Thoreau and the Search for Self." ]: Frederic C. Beil, 1997. {{ISBN|0-913720-74-7}}
* Sullivan, Mark W. "Henry David Thoreau in the American Art of the 1950s." ''The Concord Saunterer: A Journal of Thoreau Studies'', New Series, Vol. 18 (2010), pp.&nbsp;68–89.
* Sullivan, Mark W. ''Picturing Thoreau: Henry David Thoreau in American Visual Culture.'' ]: Lexington Books, 2015
* ]. ''Henry David Thoreau and the Moral Agency of Knowing''. University of California, Berkeley. 2001. {{ISBN|0-520-23915-6}}
* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304121233/http://www.iep.utm.edu/thoreau/ |date=March 4, 2016 }}{{nbsp}}– '']''
* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101204075542/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thoreau/ |date=December 4, 2010 }}{{nbsp}}– '']''
* Thorson, Robert M. ''The Boatman: Henry David Thoreau's River Years'' (Harvard UP, 2017), on his scientific study of the Concord River in the late 1850s.
* Thorson, Robert M. ''Walden's Shore: Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Science'' (2015).
* Thorson, Robert M. ''The Guide to Walden Pond: An Exploration of the History, Nature, Landscape, and Literature of One of America's Most Iconic Places'' (2018).
* {{cite journal|last1=Traub|first1=Courtney|title='First-Rate Fellows': Excavating Thoreau's Radical Egalitarian Reflections in a Late Draft of "Allegash"|journal=The Concord Saunterer: A Journal of Thoreau Studies|date=2015|volume=23|pages=74–96}}
* ]. ''Seeing New Worlds: Henry David Thoreau and 19th Century Science''. University of Wisconsin. 1995. {{ISBN|0-299-14744-4}}
* ]. ''Henry David Thoreau: A Life''. The University of Chicago Press. 2017. {{ISBN|978-0-226-34469-0}}
{{Refend}}
* ]. 1969 ''Red, White, and Blue: Men, Books, and Ideas in American Culture''. New York: Oxford University Press


== External links == ==External links==
{{Wikisource author}}
{{sisterlinks|s=Author:Henry David Thoreau}}
{{Wikiquote}}
'''Texts'''
{{Commons}}
*. The annotated works of Henry David Thoreau.
{{EB1911 poster|Thoreau, Henry David}}
*, at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods.
{{Library resources box|onlinebooks=yes|by=yes}}
*, at Princeton University Press
*
*{{gutenberg author|id=Henry_David_Thoreau|name=Henry David Thoreau}}. Text and HTML.
*
* at ]. Scanned books.
* from ]'s '']''
* from American Studies at the University of Virginia
* from American Studies at the University of Virginia
*
* (relating to political philosophy)
*


===Texts===
'''Manuscripts'''
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/henry-david-thoreau}}
*.
* {{Gutenberg author | id=54 | name=Henry David Thoreau}}
*]].
* {{FadedPage|id=Thoreau, Henry D.|name=Henry D. Thoreau|author=yes}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Henry David Thoreau}}
* {{Librivox author |id=371}}
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* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060405032000/http://thoreau.eserver.org/ |date=April 5, 2006 }} by '']''
* at ''The Walden Woods Project''
* at the Concord Free Public Library
* {{nbsp}}– The Works and Life of Henry D. Thoreau


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Latest revision as of 13:30, 26 December 2024

American philosopher (1817–1862) "Thoreau" redirects here. For other uses, see Thoreau (disambiguation).

Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau in 1856
BornDavid Henry Thoreau
(1817-07-12)July 12, 1817
Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedMay 6, 1862(1862-05-06) (aged 44)
Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma materHarvard College
Era19th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolTranscendentalism
Main interests
  • Ethics
  • poetry
  • religion
  • politics
  • biology
  • philosophy
  • history
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Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and attention to practical detail. He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs.

Thoreau was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the fugitive slave law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of notable figures such as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Thoreau is sometimes referred to retrospectively as an anarchist, but may perhaps be more properly regarded as a proto-anarchist. In his seminal essay, "Civil Disobedience", Thoreau wrote as follows:

"I heartily accept the motto,—'That government is best which governs least;' and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,—'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.... But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government."

Pronunciation of his name

Amos Bronson Alcott and Thoreau's aunt each wrote that "Thoreau" is pronounced like the word thorough (/ˈθʌroʊ/ THURR-oh—in General American, but more precisely /ˈθɔːroʊ/ THOR-oh—in 19th-century New England). Edward Waldo Emerson wrote that the name should be pronounced "Thó-row", with the h sounded and stress on the first syllable. Among modern-day American English speakers, it is perhaps more commonly pronounced /θəˈroʊ/ thə-ROH—with stress on the second syllable.

Physical appearance

Thoreau had a distinctive appearance, with a nose that he called his "most prominent feature". Of his appearance and disposition, Ellery Channing wrote:

His face, once seen, could not be forgotten. The features were quite marked: the nose aquiline or very Roman, like one of the portraits of Caesar (more like a beak, as was said); large overhanging brows above the deepest set blue eyes that could be seen, in certain lights, and in others gray,—eyes expressive of all shades of feeling, but never weak or near-sighted; the forehead not unusually broad or high, full of concentrated energy and purpose; the mouth with prominent lips, pursed up with meaning and thought when silent, and giving out when open with the most varied and unusual instructive sayings.

Life

Early life and education, 1817–1837

Thoreau's birthplace, the Wheeler-Minot Farmhouse in Concord, Massachusetts

Henry David Thoreau was born David Henry Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts, into the "modest New England family" of John Thoreau, a pencil maker, and Cynthia Dunbar. His father was of French Protestant descent. His paternal grandfather had been born on the UK crown dependency island of Jersey. His maternal grandfather, Asa Dunbar, led Harvard's 1766 student "Butter Rebellion", the first recorded student protest in the American colonies. David Henry was named after his recently deceased paternal uncle, David Thoreau. He began to call himself Henry David after he finished college; he never petitioned to make a legal name change.

He had two older siblings, Helen and John Jr., and a younger sister, Sophia Thoreau. None of the children married. Helen (1812–1849) died at age 37, from tuberculosis. John Jr. (1814–1842) died at age 27, of tetanus after cutting himself while shaving. Henry David (1817–1862) died at age 44, of tuberculosis. Sophia (1819–1876) survived him by 14 years, dying at age 56, of tuberculosis.

He studied at Harvard College between 1833 and 1837. He lived in Hollis Hall and took courses in rhetoric, classics, philosophy, mathematics, and science. He was a member of the Institute of 1770 (now the Hasty Pudding Club). According to legend, Thoreau refused to pay the five-dollar fee (approximately equivalent to $153 in 2023) for a Harvard master's diploma, which he described thus: Harvard College offered it to graduates "who proved their physical worth by being alive three years after graduating, and their saving, earning, or inheriting quality or condition by having Five Dollars to give the college". He commented, "Let every sheep keep its own skin", a reference to the tradition of using sheepskin vellum for diplomas.

Thoreau's birthplace still exists on Virginia Road in Concord. The house has been restored by the Thoreau Farm Trust, a nonprofit organization, and is now open to the public.

Return to Concord, 1837–1844

The traditional professions open to college graduates—law, the church, business, medicine—did not interest Thoreau, so in 1835 he took a leave of absence from Harvard, during which he taught at a school in Canton, Massachusetts, living for two years at an earlier version of today's Colonial Inn in Concord. His grandfather owned the earliest of the three buildings that were later combined. After he graduated in 1837, Thoreau joined the faculty of the Concord public school, but he resigned after a few weeks rather than administer corporal punishment. He and his brother John then opened the Concord Academy, a grammar school in Concord, in 1838. They introduced several progressive concepts, including nature walks and visits to local shops and businesses. The school closed when John became fatally ill from tetanus in 1842 after cutting himself while shaving. He died in Henry's arms.

Upon graduation Thoreau returned home to Concord, where he met Ralph Waldo Emerson through a mutual friend. Emerson, who was 14 years his senior, took a paternal and at times patron-like interest in Thoreau, advising the young man and introducing him to a circle of local writers and thinkers, including Ellery Channing, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne and his son Julian Hawthorne, who was a boy at the time.

Emerson urged Thoreau to contribute essays and poems to a quarterly periodical, The Dial, and lobbied the editor, Margaret Fuller, to publish those writings. Thoreau's first essay published in The Dial was "Aulus Persius Flaccus", an essay on the Roman poet and satirist, in July 1840. It consisted of revised passages from his journal, which he had begun keeping at Emerson's suggestion. The first journal entry, on October 22, 1837, reads, "'What are you doing now?' he asked. 'Do you keep a journal?' So I make my first entry to-day."

Thoreau was a philosopher of nature and its relation to the human condition. In his early years he followed transcendentalism, a loose and eclectic idealist philosophy advocated by Emerson, Fuller, and Alcott. They held that an ideal spiritual state transcends, or goes beyond, the physical and empirical, and that one achieves that insight via personal intuition rather than religious doctrine. In their view, Nature is the outward sign of inward spirit, expressing the "radical correspondence of visible things and human thoughts", as Emerson wrote in Nature (1836).

1967 U.S. postage stamp honoring Thoreau, designed by Leonard Baskin

On April 18, 1841, Thoreau moved in with the Emersons. There, from 1841 to 1844, he served as the children's tutor; he was also an editorial assistant, repairman and gardener. For a few months in 1843, he moved to the home of William Emerson on Staten Island, and tutored the family's sons while seeking contacts among literary men and journalists in the city who might help publish his writings, including his future literary representative Horace Greeley.

Thoreau returned to Concord and worked in his family's pencil factory, which he would continue to do alongside his writing and other work for most of his adult life. He resurrected the process of making good pencils with inferior graphite by using clay as a binder. The process of mixing graphite and clay, known as the Conté process, had been first patented by Nicolas-Jacques Conté in 1795. Thoreau made profitable use of a graphite source found in New Hampshire that had been purchased in 1821 by his uncle, Charles Dunbar. The company's other source of graphite had been Tantiusques, a mine operated by Native Americans in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Later, Thoreau converted the pencil factory to produce plumbago, a name for graphite at the time, which was used in the electrotyping process.

Once back in Concord, Thoreau went through a restless period. In April 1844 he and his friend Edward Hoar accidentally set a fire that consumed 300 acres (120 hectares) of Walden Woods.

"Civil Disobedience" and the Walden years, 1845–1850

Thoreau sites at Walden Pond

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

— Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For", in Walden

Thoreau felt a need to concentrate and work more on his writing. In 1845, Ellery Channing told Thoreau, "Go out upon that, build yourself a hut, & there begin the grand process of devouring yourself alive. I see no other alternative, no other hope for you." Thus, on July 4, 1845, Thoreau embarked on a two-year experiment in simple living, moving to a small house he had built on land owned by Emerson in a second growth forest around the shores of Walden Pond, having had a request to build a hut on Flints Pond, near that of his friend Charles Stearns Wheeler, denied by the landowners due to the Fairhaven Bay incident. The house was in "a pretty pasture and woodlot" of 14 acres (5.7 hectares) that Emerson had bought, 1+1⁄2 miles (2.5 kilometers) from his family home. Whilst there, he wrote his only extended piece of literary criticism, "Thomas Carlyle and His Works".

Original title page of Walden, with an illustration from a drawing by Thoreau's sister Sophia

On July 24 or July 25, 1846, Thoreau ran into the local tax collector, Sam Staples, who asked him to pay six years of delinquent poll taxes. Thoreau refused because of his opposition to the Mexican–American War and slavery, and he spent a night in jail because of this refusal. The next day Thoreau was freed when someone, likely to have been his aunt, paid the tax, against his wishes. The experience had a strong impact on Thoreau. In January and February 1848, he delivered lectures on "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government", explaining his tax resistance at the Concord Lyceum. Bronson Alcott attended the lecture, writing in his journal on January 26:

Heard Thoreau's lecture before the Lyceum on the relation of the individual to the State—an admirable statement of the rights of the individual to self-government, and an attentive audience. His allusions to the Mexican War, to Mr. Hoar's expulsion from Carolina, his own imprisonment in Concord Jail for refusal to pay his tax, Mr. Hoar's payment of mine when taken to prison for a similar refusal, were all pertinent, well considered, and reasoned. I took great pleasure in this deed of Thoreau's.

— Bronson Alcott, Journals

Thoreau revised the lecture into an essay titled "Resistance to Civil Government" (also known as "Civil Disobedience"). It was published by Elizabeth Peabody in the Aesthetic Papers in May 1849. Thoreau had taken up a version of Percy Shelley's principle in the political poem "The Mask of Anarchy" (1819), which begins with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time and then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action.

At Walden Pond, Thoreau completed a first draft of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, an elegy to his brother John, describing their trip to the White Mountains in 1839. Thoreau did not find a publisher for the book and instead printed 1,000 copies at his own expense; fewer than 300 were sold. He self-published on the advice of Emerson, using Emerson's publisher, Munroe, who did little to publicize the book.

Reconstruction of the interior of Thoreau's cabinReplica of Thoreau's cabin and a statue of him near Walden Pond

In August 1846, Thoreau briefly left Walden to make a trip to Mount Katahdin in Maine, a journey that was later recorded in "Ktaadn", the first part of The Maine Woods.

Thoreau left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847. At Emerson's request, he immediately moved back to the Emerson house to help Emerson's wife, Lidian, manage the household while her husband was on an extended trip to Europe. Over several years, as he worked to pay off his debts, he continuously revised the manuscript of what he eventually published as Walden, or Life in the Woods in 1854, recounting the two years, two months, and two days he had spent at Walden Pond. The book compresses that time into a single calendar year, using the passage of the four seasons to symbolize human development. Part memoir and part spiritual quest, Walden at first won few admirers, but later critics have regarded it as a classic American work that explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty as models for just social and cultural conditions.

The American poet Robert Frost wrote of Thoreau, "In one book ... he surpasses everything we have had in America."

The American author John Updike said of the book, "A century and a half after its publication, Walden has become such a totem of the back-to-nature, preservationist, anti-business, civil-disobedience mindset, and Thoreau so vivid a protester, so perfect a crank and hermit saint, that the book risks being as revered and unread as the Bible."

Thoreau moved out of Emerson's house in July 1848 and stayed at a house on nearby Belknap Street. In 1850, he moved into a house at 255 Main Street, where he lived until his death.

In the summer of 1850, Thoreau and Channing journeyed from Boston to Montreal and Quebec City. These would be Thoreau's only travels outside the United States. It is as a result of this trip that he developed lectures that eventually became A Yankee in Canada. He jested that all he got from this adventure "was a cold". In fact, this proved an opportunity to contrast American civic spirit and democratic values with a colony apparently ruled by illegitimate religious and military power. Whereas his own country had had its revolution, in Canada history had failed to turn.

Later years, 1851–1862

Thoreau in 1854

In 1851, Thoreau became increasingly fascinated with natural history and narratives of travel and expedition. He read avidly on botany and often wrote observations on this topic into his journal. He admired William Bartram and Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. He kept detailed observations on Concord's nature lore, recording everything from how the fruit ripened over time to the fluctuating depths of Walden Pond and the days certain birds migrated. The point of this task was to "anticipate" the seasons of nature, in his word.

He became a land surveyor and continued to write increasingly detailed observations on the natural history of the town, covering an area of 26 square miles (67 square kilometers), in his journal, a two-million-word document he kept for 24 years. He also kept a series of notebooks, and these observations became the source of his late writings on natural history, such as "Autumnal Tints", "The Succession of Trees", and "Wild Apples", an essay lamenting the destruction of the local wild apple species.

With the rise of environmental history and ecocriticism as academic disciplines, several new readings of Thoreau began to emerge, showing him to have been both a philosopher and an analyst of ecological patterns in fields and woodlots. For instance, "The Succession of Forest Trees", shows that he used experimentation and analysis to explain how forests regenerate after fire or human destruction, through the dispersal of seeds by winds or animals. In this lecture, first presented to a cattle show in Concord, and considered his greatest contribution to ecology, Thoreau explained why one species of tree can grow in a place where a different tree did previously. He observed that squirrels often carry nuts far from the tree from which they fell to create stashes. These seeds are likely to germinate and grow should the squirrel die or abandon the stash. He credited the squirrel for performing a "great service ... in the economy of the universe."

Walden Pond

He traveled to Canada East once, Cape Cod four times, and Maine three times; these landscapes inspired his "excursion" books, A Yankee in Canada, Cape Cod, and The Maine Woods, in which travel itineraries frame his thoughts about geography, history and philosophy. Other travels took him southwest to Philadelphia and New York City in 1854 and west across the Great Lakes region in 1861, when he visited Niagara Falls, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Mackinac Island. He was provincial in his own travels, but he read widely about travel in other lands. He devoured all the first-hand travel accounts available in his day, at a time when the last unmapped regions of the earth were being explored. He read Magellan and James Cook; the arctic explorers John Franklin, Alexander Mackenzie and William Parry; David Livingstone and Richard Francis Burton on Africa; Lewis and Clark; and hundreds of lesser-known works by explorers and literate travelers. Astonishing amounts of reading fed his endless curiosity about the peoples, cultures, religions and natural history of the world and left its traces as commentaries in his voluminous journals. He processed everything he read, in the local laboratory of his Concord experience. Among his famous aphorisms is his advice to "live at home like a traveler".

After John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, many prominent voices in the abolitionist movement distanced themselves from Brown or damned him with faint praise. Thoreau was disgusted by this, and he composed a key speech, "A Plea for Captain John Brown", which was uncompromising in its defense of Brown and his actions. Thoreau's speech proved persuasive: the abolitionist movement began to accept Brown as a martyr, and by the time of the American Civil War entire armies of the North were literally singing Brown's praises. As a biographer of Brown put it, "If, as Alfred Kazin suggests, without John Brown there would have been no Civil War, we would add that without the Concord Transcendentalists, John Brown would have had little cultural impact."

Thoreau in his second and final photographic sitting, August 1861.

Tuberculosis and death

Thoreau contracted tuberculosis in 1835 and suffered from it sporadically afterwards. In 1860, following a late-night excursion to count the rings of tree stumps during a rainstorm, he became ill with bronchitis. His health declined, with brief periods of remission, and he eventually became bedridden. Recognizing the terminal nature of his disease, Thoreau spent his last years revising and editing his unpublished works, particularly The Maine Woods and Excursions, and petitioning publishers to print revised editions of A Week and Walden. He wrote letters and journal entries until he became too weak to continue. His friends were alarmed at his diminished appearance and were fascinated by his tranquil acceptance of death. When his aunt Louisa asked him in his last weeks if he had made his peace with God, Thoreau responded, "I did not know we had ever quarreled."

Grave of Thoreau at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord
Geodetic Marker at Thoreau's gravesite

Aware he was dying, Thoreau's last words were "Now comes good sailing", followed by two lone words, "moose" and "Indian". He died on May 6, 1862, at age 44. Amos Bronson Alcott planned the service and read selections from Thoreau's works, and Channing presented a hymn. Emerson wrote the eulogy spoken at the funeral. Thoreau was buried in the Dunbar family plot; his remains and those of members of his immediate family were eventually moved to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

Nature and human existence

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

— Thoreau

Thoreau was an early advocate of recreational hiking and canoeing, of conserving natural resources on private land, and of preserving wilderness as public land. He was himself a highly skilled canoeist; Nathaniel Hawthorne, after a ride with him, noted that "Mr. Thoreau managed the boat so perfectly, either with two paddles or with one, that it seemed instinct with his own will, and to require no physical effort to guide it."

He was not a strict vegetarian, though he said he preferred that diet and advocated it as a means of self-improvement. He wrote in Walden, "The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth."

Thoreau's famous quotation, near his cabin site at Walden Pond

Thoreau neither rejected civilization nor fully embraced wilderness. Instead he sought a middle ground, the pastoral realm that integrates nature and culture. His philosophy required that he be a didactic arbitrator between the wilderness he based so much on and the spreading mass of humanity in North America. He decried the latter endlessly but felt that a teacher needs to be close to those who needed to hear what he wanted to tell them. The wildness he enjoyed was the nearby swamp or forest, and he preferred "partially cultivated country". His idea of being "far in the recesses of the wilderness" of Maine was to "travel the logger's path and the Indian trail", but he also hiked on pristine land.

In an essay titled, "Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher", environmental historian Roderick Nash wrote, "Thoreau left Concord in 1846 for the first of three trips to northern Maine. His expectations were high because he hoped to find genuine, primeval America. But contact with real wilderness in Maine affected him far differently than had the idea of wilderness in Concord. Instead of coming out of the woods with a deepened appreciation of the wilds, Thoreau felt a greater respect for civilization and realized the necessity of balance."

Of alcohol, Thoreau wrote, "I would fain keep sober always. ... I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor. ... Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?"

Sexuality

Thoreau never married and was childless. In 1840, when he was 23, he proposed to eighteen-year old Ellen Sewall, but she refused him, on the advice of her father. Sophia Foord proposed to him, but he rejected her.

Thoreau's sexuality has long been the subject of speculation, including by his contemporaries. Critics have called him heterosexual, homosexual, or asexual. There is no evidence to suggest he had physical relations with anyone, man or woman. Bronson Alcott wrote that Thoreau "seemed to have no temptations. All those strong wants that do battle with other men's nature, he knew not." Some scholars have suggested that homoerotic sentiments run through his writings and concluded that he was homosexual. The elegy "Sympathy" was inspired by the eleven-year-old Edmund Sewall, who had just spent five days in the Thoreau household in 1839. One scholar has suggested that he wrote the poem to Edmund because he could not bring himself to write it to Edmund's sister Anna, and another that Thoreau's "emotional experiences with women are memorialized under a camouflage of masculine pronouns", but other scholars dismiss this. It has been argued that the long paean in Walden to the French-Canadian woodchopper Alek Therien, which includes allusions to Achilles and Patroclus, is an expression of conflicted desire. In some of Thoreau's writing there is the sense of a secret self. In 1840 he writes in his journal: "My friend is the apology for my life. In him are the spaces which my orbit traverses". Thoreau was strongly influenced by the moral reformers of his time, and this may have instilled anxiety and guilt over sexual desire.

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John Brown "Treason" Broadside, 1859

Thoreau was fervently against slavery and actively supported the abolitionist movement. He participated as a conductor in the Underground Railroad, delivered lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law, and in opposition to the popular opinion of the time, supported radical abolitionist militia leader John Brown and his party. Two weeks after the ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry and in the weeks leading up to Brown's execution, Thoreau delivered a speech to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts, in which he compared the American government to Pontius Pilate and likened Brown's execution to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ:

Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light.

In "The Last Days of John Brown", Thoreau described the words and deeds of John Brown as noble and an example of heroism. In addition, he lamented the newspaper editors who dismissed Brown and his scheme as "crazy".

Thoreau was a proponent of limited government and individualism. Although he was hopeful that mankind could potentially have, through self-betterment, the kind of government which "governs not at all", he distanced himself from contemporary "no-government men" (anarchists), writing: "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government."

Thoreau deemed the evolution from absolute monarchy to limited monarchy to democracy as "a progress toward true respect for the individual" and theorized about further improvements "towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man". Echoing this belief, he went on to write: "There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."

It is on this basis that Thoreau could so strongly inveigh against the British administration and Catholicism in A Yankee in Canada. Despotic authority, Thoreau argued, had crushed the people's sense of ingenuity and enterprise; the Canadian habitants had been reduced, in his view, to a perpetual childlike state. Ignoring the recent rebellions, he argued that there would be no revolution in the St. Lawrence River valley.

Although Thoreau believed resistance to unjustly exercised authority could be both violent (exemplified in his support for John Brown) and nonviolent (his own example of tax resistance as described in "Resistance to Civil Government"), he regarded pacifist nonresistance as temptation to passivity, writing: "Let not our Peace be proclaimed by the rust on our swords, or our inability to draw them from their scabbards; but let her at least have so much work on her hands as to keep those swords bright and sharp." Furthermore, in a formal lyceum debate in 1841, he debated the subject "Is it ever proper to offer forcible resistance?", arguing the affirmative.

Likewise, his condemnation of the Mexican–American War did not stem from pacifism, but rather because he considered Mexico "unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army" as a means to expand the slave territory.

Thoreau was ambivalent towards industrialization and capitalism. On one hand he regarded commerce as "unexpectedly confident and serene, adventurous, and unwearied" and expressed admiration for its associated cosmopolitanism, writing:

I am refreshed and expanded when the freight train rattles past me, and I smell the stores which go dispensing their odors all the way from Long Wharf to Lake Champlain, reminding me of foreign parts, of coral reefs, and Indian oceans, and tropical climes, and the extent of the globe. I feel more like a citizen of the world at the sight of the palm-leaf which will cover so many flaxen New England heads the next summer

On the other hand, he wrote disparagingly of the factory system:

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched.

Thoreau also favored the protection of animals and wild areas, free trade, and taxation for schools and highways, and espoused views that at least in part align with what is today known as bioregionalism. He disapproved of the subjugation of Native Americans, slavery, philistinism, technological utopianism, and what can be regarded in today's terms as consumerism, mass entertainment, and frivolous applications of technology.

Intellectual interests, influences, and affinities

Indian sacred texts and philosophy

Thoreau was influenced by Indian spiritual thought. In Walden, there are many overt references to the sacred texts of India. For example, in the first chapter ("Economy"), he writes: "How much more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta than all the ruins of the East!" American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia classes him as one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world", also a characteristic of Hinduism.

Furthermore, in "The Pond in Winter", he equates Walden Pond with the sacred Ganges river, writing:

In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.

Thoreau was aware his Ganges imagery could have been factual. He wrote about ice harvesting at Walden Pond. And he knew that New England's ice merchants were shipping ice to foreign ports, including Calcutta.

Additionally, Thoreau followed various Hindu customs, including a diet largely consisting of rice ("It was fit that I should live on rice, mainly, who loved so well the philosophy of India."), flute playing (reminiscent of the favorite musical pastime of Krishna), and yoga.

In an 1849 letter to his friend H.G.O. Blake, he wrote about yoga and its meaning to him:

Free in this world as the birds in the air, disengaged from every kind of chains, those who practice yoga gather in Brahma the certain fruits of their works. Depend upon it that, rude and careless as I am, I would fain practice the yoga faithfully. The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to creation; he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonderful things. Divine forms traverse him without tearing him, and united to the nature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts as animating original matter. To some extent, and at rare intervals, even I am a yogi.

Biology

Bird eggs found by Thoreau and given to the Boston Society of Natural History. Those in the nest are of yellow warbler, the other two of red-tailed hawk.

Thoreau read contemporary works in the new science of biology, including the works of Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Darwin, and Asa Gray (Charles Darwin's staunchest American ally). Thoreau was deeply influenced by Humboldt, especially his work Cosmos.

In 1859, Thoreau purchased and read Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Unlike many natural historians at the time, including Louis Agassiz who publicly opposed Darwinism in favor of a static view of nature, Thoreau was immediately enthusiastic about the theory of evolution by natural selection and endorsed it, stating:

The development theory implies a greater vital force in Nature, because it is more flexible and accommodating, and equivalent to a sort of constant new creation. (A quote from On the Origin of Species follows this sentence.)

Influence

A bust of Thoreau from the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at the Bronx Community College

Thoreau's careful observations and devastating conclusions have rippled into time, becoming stronger as the weaknesses Thoreau noted have become more pronounced ... Events that seem to be completely unrelated to his stay at Walden Pond have been influenced by it, including the national park system, the British labor movement, the creation of India, the civil rights movement, the hippie revolution, the environmental movement, and the wilderness movement. Today, Thoreau's words are quoted with feeling by liberals, socialists, anarchists, libertarians, and conservatives alike.

— Ken Kifer, Analysis and Notes on Walden: Henry Thoreau's Text with Adjacent Thoreauvian Commentary

Thoreau's political writings had little impact during his lifetime, as "his contemporaries did not see him as a theorist or as a radical", viewing him instead as a naturalist. They either dismissed or ignored his political essays, including "Civil Disobedience". The only two complete books (as opposed to essays) that were published in his lifetime, Walden and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), both dealt with Nature, in which he "loved to wander". His obituary was lumped in with others, rather than as a separate article, in an 1862 yearbook. Critics and the public continued either to disdain or to ignore Thoreau for years, but the publication of extracts from his journal in the 1880s by his friend H.G.O. Blake, and of a definitive set of Thoreau's works by the Riverside Press between 1893 and 1906, led to the rise of what literary historian F. L. Pattee called a "Thoreau cult".

Thoreau's writings went on to influence many public figures. Political leaders and reformers like Mohandas Gandhi, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and Russian author Leo Tolstoy all spoke of being strongly affected by Thoreau's work, particularly "Civil Disobedience", as did "right-wing theorist Frank Chodorov devoted an entire issue of his monthly, Analysis, to an appreciation of Thoreau".

Thoreau also influenced many artists and authors including Edward Abbey, Willa Cather, Marcel Proust, William Butler Yeats, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, E. B. White, Lewis Mumford, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Posey, and Gustav Stickley. Thoreau also influenced naturalists like John Burroughs, John Muir, E. O. Wilson, Edwin Way Teale, Joseph Wood Krutch, B. F. Skinner, David Brower, and Loren Eiseley, who Publishers Weekly called "the modern Thoreau".

Thoreau's friend William Ellery Channing published his first biography, Thoreau the Poet-Naturalist, in 1873. English writer Henry Stephens Salt wrote a biography of Thoreau in 1890, which popularized Thoreau's ideas in Britain: George Bernard Shaw, Edward Carpenter, and Robert Blatchford were among those who became Thoreau enthusiasts as a result of Salt's advocacy.

Mohandas Gandhi first read Walden in 1906, while working as a civil rights activist in Johannesburg, South Africa. Gandhi first read "Civil Disobedience" while he sat in a South African prison for the crime of nonviolently protesting discrimination against the Indian population in the Transvaal. The essay galvanized Gandhi, who wrote and published a synopsis of Thoreau's argument, calling what he termed its "incisive logic ... unanswerable" and referring to Thoreau as "one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced." He told American reporter Webb Miller, " ideas influenced me greatly. I adopted some of them and recommended the study of Thoreau to all of my friends who were helping me in the cause of Indian Independence. Why I actually took the name of my movement from Thoreau's essay 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience', written about 80 years ago."

Martin Luther King Jr. noted in his autobiography that his first encounter with the idea of nonviolent resistance was reading "On Civil Disobedience" in 1944 while attending Morehouse College. He wrote in his autobiography that it was,

Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times. I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters; a freedom ride into Mississippi; a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia; a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama; these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.

American psychologist B. F. Skinner wrote that he carried a copy of Thoreau's Walden with him in his youth. In Walden Two (published in 1948), Skinner wrote about a fictional utopian community of about 1,000 members inspired by the life of Henry Thoreau. Thoreau and his fellow Transcendentalists from Concord, Massachusetts were also a major inspiration for the American composer Charles Ives, whose 1915 Piano Sonata No. 2, known as the Concord Sonata, features "impressionistic pictures of Emerson and Thoreau", and includes a part for flute, Thoreau's instrument, in its 4th movement.

Actor Ron Thompson did a dramatic portrayal of Henry David Thoreau in the 1976 NBC television series The Rebels.

Thoreau's ideas have impacted and resonated with various strains in the anarchist movement, with Emma Goldman referring to him as "the greatest American anarchist". Green anarchism and anarcho-primitivism in particular have both derived inspiration and ecological points-of-view from the writings of Thoreau. John Zerzan included Thoreau's text "Excursions" (1863) in his edited compilation of works in the anarcho-primitivist tradition titled Against civilization: Readings and reflections. Additionally, Murray Rothbard, the founder of anarcho-capitalism, has opined that Thoreau was one of the "great intellectual heroes" of his movement. Thoreau was also an important influence on late 19th-century anarchist naturism. Globally, Thoreau's concepts also held importance within individualist anarchist circles in Spain, France, and Portugal.

For the 200th anniversary of his birth, publishers released several new editions of his work: a recreation of Walden's 1902 edition with illustrations, a picture book with excerpts from Walden, and an annotated collection of Thoreau's essays on slavery. The United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Thoreau on May 23, 2017, in Concord, MA.

Critical reception

Thoreau's work and career received little attention from his contemporaries until 1865, when the North American Review published James Russell Lowell's review of various papers of Thoreau's that Emerson had collected and edited. Lowell's essay, Letters to Various Persons, which he republished as a chapter in his book, My Study Windows, derided Thoreau as a humorless poseur trafficking in commonplaces, a sentimentalist lacking in imagination, a "Diogenes in his barrel", resentfully criticizing what he could not attain. Lowell's caustic analysis influenced Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, who criticized Thoreau as a "skulker", saying "He did not wish virtue to go out of him among his fellow-men, but slunk into a corner to hoard it for himself."

Nathaniel Hawthorne had mixed feelings about Thoreau. He noted that "He is a keen and delicate observer of nature—a genuine observer—which, I suspect, is almost as rare a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for his love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and shows him secrets which few others are allowed to witness." On the other hand, he also wrote that Thoreau "repudiated all regular modes of getting a living, and seems inclined to lead a sort of Indian life among civilized men".

In a similar vein, poet John Greenleaf Whittier detested what he deemed to be the "wicked" and "heathenish" message of Walden, claiming that Thoreau wanted man to "lower himself to the level of a woodchuck and walk on four legs".

In response to such criticisms, the English novelist George Eliot, writing decades later for the Westminster Review, characterized such critics as uninspired and narrow-minded:

People—very wise in their own eyes—who would have every man's life ordered according to a particular pattern, and who are intolerant of every existence the utility of which is not palpable to them, may pooh-pooh Mr. Thoreau and this episode in his history, as unpractical and dreamy.

Thoreau himself also responded to the criticism in a paragraph of his work Walden by highlighting what he felt was the irrelevance of their inquiries:

I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. ... Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; ... I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.

Recent criticism has accused Thoreau of hypocrisy, misanthropy, and being sanctimonious, based on his writings in Walden, although these criticisms have been regarded as highly selective.

Selected works

Many of Thoreau's works were not published during his lifetime, including his journals and numerous unfinished manuscripts.

See also

References

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Further reading

  • Ward, John William. 1969 Red, White, and Blue: Men, Books, and Ideas in American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press

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