Henry David Thoreau

Robert Pinsky is Professor of English at Boston University and an editor of the weekly online magazine Slate. He is the author of many books of poetry and literary criticism. He served two terms as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1997-2000. This new paperback edition of Henry D. Thoreau's compelling account of Cape Cod contains the complete, definitive text of the original. Introduced by American poet...

Henry David Thoreau had a very close relationship with his older brother, John. Sadly, after cutting himself while shaving, John developed lockjaw, and died tragically in 1842. Thoreau, who was only 25 at the time, was deeply affected by the loss of his brother. During his two year stay in his cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, he wrote an account of a two week boat trip he took with John in August of 1839. The brothers built a boat and began their...

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849) is an essay by the American transcendentalist writer and poet Henry David Thoreau in which he insists that rebelling against a government is a duty whenever such a government starts taking decisions against the will of the people. Thoreau justifies his radical stance by the fact that elected governments are not always legitimate or fair decision-makers. For him, this is mainly exemplified in the way his contemporary...

"From July 4, 1845 to September 6, 1847 Henry David Thoreau lived alone in the cabin he built on the shores of Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts. Walden is the classic account of his stay--his experiment in essential living. This book is framed as a narrative of the cycle of one year, beginning with summer. Thoreau uses the changes of the day, the seasons, and the year to symbolize the quiet revolution that is going on inside him. His specific...

A Book that Transformed America Civil Disobedience was Thoreau's first published book and continues to transform American discourse. It is unusual for its symbolism and structure, its criticism of Christian institutions, and its many-layered storytelling. The ideas presented in this essay have influenced some of the most powerful and influential people in history, including Martin Luther King Jnr, Leo Tolstoy, President John F. Kennedy and Ernest...

One of America's most celebrated naturalists, Thoreau often chose nature over human companionship for comfort. Early Spring in Massachusetts is one of four seasonal volumes culled from his journals and captures the season with Thoreau's keen eye and appreciation for his surroundings.

"It is only when we forget our learning that we begin to know," Thoreau wrote. Ideas about education permeate Thoreau's writing. Uncommon Learning brings those ideas together in a single volume for the first time.

Editor Harrison Gray Otis Blake was a disciple of Emerson and Thoreau. In 1888 he approached Thoreau's writings in a unique way, assembling journal entries from different years, but all about the same season. The resulting composite portrait gives us Thoreau's thoughts on nature, plain living, and everyday life, including his perambulations by skate and snowshoe.