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Henry D(avid) Thoreau (1817-1862)

American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher,
best-known for his autobiographical story of life in
the woods, Walden (1854). Thoreau became one of
the leading personalities in New England
Transcendentalism. He wrote tirelessly but
published only two books in his lifetime and did not
earn much as a journalist. Thoreau's Civil
Disobedience (1849) influenced Gandhi in his
passive resistance campaigns, Martin Luther King,
Jr., and at one time the politics of the British Labour
Party.
"For many years I was self-appointed inspector of
snowstorms and rainstorms, and did my duty
faithfully, through I never received one cent for it."
(Journal, February 22, 1845-1847 - no year in
Thoreau's dateline)
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord,
Massachusetts, which was center of his life,
although he spent several years in his childhood in
the neighboring towns and elsewhere in his
adulthood. In 1835 Thoreau contracted tuberculosis
and suffered from recurring bouts throughout his life.
However, a few years later Emerson described
Thoreau as a "strong healthy youth fresh from
college". He had an out-of doors complexion, and he
was often seen walking around his home town.
Thoreau studied at Concord Academy (1828-33), and
at Harvard University, graduating in 1837. He was
teacher in Canton, Massachusetts (1835-36), and at
Center School (1837), resigning after two weeks he
first refused to continue the tradition of daily
canings and then beat six students to protest
against corporal punishment.
From 1837-38 Thoreau worked in his father's pencil
factory, and returning to the factory in 1844 and
1849-50. With his elder brother John he opened a
school in Concord. Thoreau taught there in 1838-41
until his John Thoreau became fatally ill. From 1848
he was a regular lecturer at Concord Lyceum. He
also worked as a land surveyor.
A decisive turning point in Thoreau's life came when
he met Ralph Waldo Emerson. From 1841 to 1843, he
was a member of Emerson household, earning his
living as a handyman. When Hawthorne and his wife
Sophia moved to The Old Manse in Concord, he
planted a vegetable garden beans, Indian corn, and
summer squash for them. Eventually there was
superabundance of cabbages. Hawthorne respected
Thoreau's minute devotion to nature and
appreciated his writing for its careful
observation. "On the whole, I find him a healthy and
wholesome man to know," he wrote on Thoreau in
his journal. However, Sophia was first put off by his
awkwardness, opinions, staring intensity of his eyes,
and unbending rigor of his character. In
1843 Thoreau was a tutor to William Emerson's sons
in Staten Island, New York, and in 1847-48 he again
lived in Emerson's house.
In 1845 Thoreau built a home on the shores of
Walden Point for twenty-eight dollars. His
observations and speculations Thoreau recorded
in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
(1849). The account was based on a trip he took
with John Thoreau in 1839.
His first book sold poorly and Thoreau remarked, "I
have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes,
over seven hundred of which I wrote myself."
Thoreau's most famous essay, Civil Disobedience
(1849), was a result of a overnight visit in 1846 in a
jail, where he ended after refusing to pay his taxes
in protest against the Mexican War and the
extension of slavery. Later Thoreau lectured and
wrote about the evils of slavery and helped fleeing
slaves. In his famous statement, "the mass of men
lead lives of quiet desperation," he crystallized his
idea to be the one who has the courage to live, to
stand against the trends of his own time.
Walden; or, Life in the Woods described a two-year
period in Thoreau's life from March 1845 to
September 1847. From the Fourth of July, the author
retired from the town to live alone at Walden Pond.
Much of Walden's material was derived from his
journals and contains such pieces as 'Reading' and
'The Pond in the Winter.' "We are a race of titmen,
and soar but a little higher in our intellectual flights
than the columns of the daily paper," Thoreau wrote
in 'Reading in Walden.' Other famous sections
involve Thoreau's visits with a Canadian woodcutter
and with an Irish family, a trip to Concord, and a
description of his bean field. Although Walden has
become an inspiration to all idealists who want to
escape civilization, Thoreau was a practical person
and took with him seed, lumber, clothes, nails, and
other devices to survive and his friends helped him
to put the roof on his hut.
"We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in
this respect I confess I do not make any very broad
distinction between the illiterateness of my own
townsman who cannot read at all and the
illiterateness of him who has learned to read only
what is for children and feeble intellects."
Although Thoreau never earned a living by his
writings, his works fill 20 volumes. Among his many
correspondence friends was H.G.O. Blake, once a
Unitarian minister and later attached to the
Transcendentalist, whom he wrote in December
1856: "I am grateful for what I am & have. My
thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how
contended one can be with nothing definite only a
sense of existance." Aware that he was dying of
tuberculosis, Thoreau cut short his travels and
returned to Concord. There prepared some of his
journals for publication. Thoreau died at Concord on
May 6, 1862. His letters were edited by his friend
Emerson and published posthumously in
1865. Poems of Nature came out in 1895 and
Collected Poems in 1943. Thoreau's collection of
journals was published in 1906 in 14 volumes.
Light-winged Smoke! Icarian bird,
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,
Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,
Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;
Or else, departing dream, and shadowly form
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;
By night star-veiling, and by day
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;
Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.
Thoreau's primary genre was essay. His fascination
with the natural surroundings is reflected in many of
his writings. 'Natural History of Massachusetts'
includes poetry, describes the Merrimack River, and
discusses the best technique for spear-fishing. In
'Resistance to Civil Government', often reprinted
with the title 'Civil Disobedience', Thoreau
recommends disobeying unjust laws. "I think that we
should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not
desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much
as for the right." Many readers have pointed out that
in 'Slavery in Massachusetts' Thoreau's defense of
John Brown, when he raided on the armory at
Harper's Ferry, contradicts his idea of passive
resistance. In his final essay, 'Life Without Principle,'
the writer warns that working for money alone will
never bring happiness. He attacks his
contemporaries' fascination with news and gossips
and explains how individuals must resist conformity
in the search for truth.
Thoreau's Wild Fruits (1999) was written with
henscratched handwriting. The text was born during
the last decade of his life. Thoreau lived in the third-
floor attic of his parents' house and recorded his
observations about vegetation surrounding Concord.
In this work he argued against the destruction of the
wilderness around him.
For furter reading: Thoreau by Henry S. Canby (1939);
Henry David Thoreau by Joseph Wood Krutch (1948);
The Making of Walden by J. Lyndon Shanley (1957);
The Days of Henry Thoreau by Walter Harding (1965);
Several More Lives to Live by Michael Meyers (1977);
Thoreau and American Indians by Robert F. Sayre
(1977); The New Thoreau Handbook by Walter
Harding and Michael Mayer (1980); Henry David
Thoreau: A Descriptive Bibliography by Raymond R.
Borst (1982); Thoreau's Reading by Robert Saltmeyer
(1988); Thoreau Log, ed. by Raymond R. Borst (1992);
Emerson and Thoreau, ed. by Joel Meyerson (1992);
The Life of Henry Thoreau by Henry S. Salt (1993);
Thoreau's World and Ours by Edmund A. Schofield
and Robert C. Baron (1993); The Enviromental
Imagination by Lawrence Buell (1995); My Friend, My
Friend: The Story of Thoreau's Relationship With
Emerson by Harmon D. Smith, Harmon L. Smith (1999)
- Note: Thoreau met Walt Whitman in 1856 in New
York. He also travelled in New Hampshire, Maine,
Canada, and Minnesota.
Selected works:
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,
1849
Resistance to Civil Government / Civil
Disobedience / On the Duty of Civil
Disobedience, 1849 -
Kansalaistottelemattomuudesta (toim. Outi
Lauhakangas, 1986)
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, 1854 - Elm
metsss (suom. Mikko Kilpi, 1954) / Walden:
elm metsss (suom. Antti Immonen, 2010)
Slavery in Massachusetts, 1854 - 'Orjuus
Massachusettissa', in Vaellus vuorelle (suom.
Antti Immonen, 2007)
A Plea for Captain John Brown, 1859
'Walking', 1862 (Atlantic Monthly) - Kvelemisen
taito (suom. Markku Envall, 1997)
Excursions, 1863
The Maine Woods, 1864
Cape Cod, 1865
A Yankee in Canada, 1866
Summer, 1884 (from the Journal of Henry D.
Thoreau; ed. by H. G. O. Blake)
The Succession of Forest Trees, and Wild
Apples, 1887
Winter, 1888 (from the Journal of Henry D.
Thoreau; ed. by H. G. O. Blake)
Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers, 1890
Autumn, 1892
A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and
Reform Papers, 1892
The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, 1894-95 (7
vols.)
Poems of Nature, 1895 (selected and ed. by
Henry S. Salt and Frank B. Sanborn)
Some Unpublished Letters of Henry D. and
Sophia E. Thoreau, 1899 (edited by Samuel
Arthur Jones)
Of Friendship: An Essay from A Week on the
Concord and Merrimack Rivers, 1901
Life Without Principle; with a Short Biography of
the Author by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1902
The Servivce, 1902 (edited by F.B. Sanborn)
The First and Last Journeys of Thoreau, 1905 (2
vols., edited by Franklin Benjamin Sanborn)
Sir Walter Raleigh, by Henry David Thoreau,
1905 (ed. by Henry Aiken Metcalf)
Journal, 1906 (14 vols., edited by Bradford
Torrey)
Familiar Letters, 1906 (edited by F.B. Sanborn)
Friendship, 1906
A Little Book of Nature Themes, 1906
The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, 1906 (20
vols.)
A Thoreau Calendar, 1909 (ed. by Annie Russell
Marble)
Friendship, Love & Marriage, 1910
Notes on New England Birds, 1910 (arranged
and ed. by Francis H. Allen)
Canoeing in the Wilderness, 1916 (ed. by Clifton
Johnson; illustrated by Will Hammell)
The Succession of Forest Trees, and Other
Essays, 1916
Two Thoreau Letters, 1916
Night and Moonlight, 1921
Where I Lived & What I Lived for, 1924
Thoreaus Last Letter; with a Note on His
Correspondent, Myron B. Benton, 1925
The Heart of Thoreaus Journals, 1927 (edited
by Odell Shepard)
Moon, 1927
Winter Animals: An Essay, 1928
Thoreau's Complete Works, 1929 (5 vols.)
Thoreau: Philosopher of Freedom, 1930
(selected, with an introduction, by James
MacKaye)
Little Essays from the Works of Henry David
Thoreau, 1931 (selected by Charles R. Murphy)
Riverside Edition. The Writings of Henry David
Thoreau, 1932 (11 vols.)
Men of Concord and Some Others as Portrayed
in the Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1936
(edited by Francis H. Allen, with illustrations by
N.C. Wyeth)
Walden and Other Writings of Henry David
Thoreau, 1937 (edited, with an introduction by
Brooks Atkinson)
The Works of Thoreau, 1937 (selected and
edited by Henry S. Canby)
The Living Thoughts of Thoreau, 1939
(presented by Theodore Dreiser)
Thoreau, Reporter of the Universe, 1939
(selected and arranged by Bertha Stevens)
Henry D. Thoreau to Elizabeth Oakes Smith,
1942
Collected Poems of Henry Thoreau, 1943 (edited
by Carl Bode)
Excerpts from Writings on Liberty, 1943
The Portable Thoreau, 1947 (edited by Carl
Bode; enl. ed., 1964)
The Journals, 1949
Selected Writings on Nature and Liberty, 1953
(edited with an introd., by Oscar Cargill)
Mr. Thoreau Declines an Invitation; Two
Unpublished Papers by Thoreau, 1956
Wild Apples: History of the Apple Tree, 1956
Thoreau Today; Selections from his Writings,
1957 (edited by Helen Barber Morrison)
Consciousness in Concord: The Text of
Thoreau's Hitherto "Lost Journal," 1840-1841,
1958 (ed. by Perry Miller)
Correspondence, 1958 (edited by Walter
Harding and Carl Bode)
Selected Writings, 1958 (edited by Lewis Leary)
The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau,
1959
Thoreaus Translation of The Seven Against
Thebes (1843), 1960 (edited by Leo Max Kaiser)
A Writers Journal, 1960 (selected and edited
with an introd. by Laurence Stapleton)
Journal, 1962 (14 vols., edited by Bradford
Torrey and Francis H. Allen, with a foreword by
Walter Harding)
Thoreaus Minnesota Journey: Two Documents,
1962 (edited by Walter Harding)
Walden, and Other Writings, 1962 (edited and
with an introd. by Joseph Wood Krutch)
The Thoughts of Thoreau, 1962 (selected with a
biographical foreword and introd. by Edwin Way
Teale)
The River; Selections from the Journal of Henry
David Thoreau, 1963 (ed. by Dudley C. Lunt)
Thoreau on Birds, 1964 (compiled and with
commentary by Helen Cruickshank, foreword by
Roger Tory Peterson)
Selected Journals, 1967 (edited, with a
foreword, by Carl Bode)
Thoreaus Canadian notebook, and Record of
Surveys, 1967 (selected chapters from
Transcendental climate, by Kenneth Walter
Cameron)
Thoreaus Turtle Nest, 1967 (pref. by Walter
Harding)
Reflections at Walden; Selected Writings, 1968
(edited by Peter Seymour)
Huckleberries, 1970 (edited, with an introd., by
Leo Stoller)
Writings, 1971-93 (7 vols.; in progress)
Thoreau's Vision: The Major Essays, 1973
(edited by Charles R. Anderson)
The Indians of Thoreau: Selections from the
Indian Notebooks, 1974 (edited by Richard F.
Fleck)
Early Essays and Miscellanies, 1975 (edited by
Joseph J. Moldenhauer and Edwin Moser, with
Alexander C. Kern)
Essays, Journals, and Poems, 1975 (edited by
Dean Flower)
The Selected Works of Thoreau, 1975 (rev. and
with a new introd. by Walter Harding)
The Natural Man, 1978 (compiled by Robert
Epstein and Sherry Phillips)
Works of Henry David Thoreau, 1981 (edited by
Lily Owens)
Great Short Works of Henry David Thoreau, 1982
(edited, with an introduction by Wendell Glick)
Some Unpublished letters of Henry D. and
Sophia E. Thoreau, 1985 (edited with a prefatory
note, by Samuel Arthur Jones)
Translations, 1986 (edited by K.P. Van Anglen)
The Winged Life: The Poetic Voice of Henry
David Thoreau, 1986 (edited and with
commentaries by Robert Bly; wood engravings
by Michael McCurdy)
Thoreaus Comments on the Art of Writing, 1987
(edited and with an introduction by Richard
Dillman)
The Natural History Essays, 1989 (introduction
and notes by Robert Sattelmeyer)
Thoreau on Writing, 1989 (compiled by Eva M.
Burkett and Joyce S. Steward)
An American Landscape, 1991 (edited and
illustrated by Robert L. Rothwell; with an
introduction by Robert Finch)
The Thoreau Log: A Documentary Life of Henry
David Thoreau, 1817-1862, 1992 (compiled by
Raymond R. Borst)
The Green Thoreau, 1992 (selected and with an
introduction by Carol Spenard LaRusso)
Faith in a Seed: The Dispersion of Seeds and
Other Late Natural History Writings, 1993
(edited by Bradley P. Dean)
Political Writings, 1996 (edited by Nancy L.
Rosenblum)
Material Faith: Thoreau on Science, 1999
(edited by Laura Dassow Walls; foreword by
Edward O. Wilson)
Uncommon Learning: Thoreau on education,
1999 (edited by Martin Bickman; foreword by
Jonathan Kozol)
Wild Fruits: Thoreaus Rediscovered Last
Manuscript, 2000 (edited and introduced by
Bradley P. Dean; illustrations by Abigail Rorer)
Henry Davids House, 2002 (edited by Steven
Schnur; illustrated by Peter Fiore)
"Wild Apples" and Other Natural History Essays,
2002 (edited by William Rossi)
Thoreau on Freedom: Attending to Man:
Selected Writings by Henry David Thoreau, 2003
(foreword by Arun Gandhi; edited by Jeffrey S.
Cramer)
Letters to a Spiritual Seeker, 2004 (edited by
Bradley P. Dean)
Bonds of Affection: Thoreau on Dogs and Cats,
2005 (edited by Wesley T. Mott; foreword by
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas)
The Journal 1837-1861, 2009 (edited by Damion
Searls)
The Portable Thoreau, 2012 (edited with an
introduction by Jeffrey S. Cramer)
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