The Essential Thoreau

Henri David Thoreau was an American writer, philosopher, publicist, naturalist, and poet. He prominently represented American transcendentalism throughout the mid-1800s. Thoreau’s love and observations of nature played a significant role in his writings, often forming the basis for critiques on modern society. As a naturalist, he advocated for the conservation of nature. Thoreau encouraged individual, passive, non-violent as a means of resistance to public evils. He personally supported the abolitionist movement and, as much as possible, took an active interest in the fate of fugitive slaves who were sought by the police. His essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" (1849) influenced Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Thoreau’s key ideas and observations are contained in these collected works.

Collected here in this omnibus edition are Henry David Thoreau's most important works including A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau, including Civil Disobedience; and of course, Walden. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is both a remembrance of an intensely spiritual moment in Henry David Thoreau's life and a memoriam to his older brother who accompanied him on the trip shortly before his death. Full of fascinating literary musings and philosophical speculations, this book is a true precursor to Walden. The Selected Essays contains nineteen essays (including Civil Disobedience). Thoreau was one of America's best known and most influential writers. His work has helped shape the American Discourse and had a lasting effect on the environmental movement in America. Walden is one of the best-known non-fiction books ever written by an American. It details Thoreau's sojourn in a cabin near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson. Walden was written with expressed seasonal divisions. Thoreau hoped to isolate himself from society in order to gain a more objective understanding of it. Simplicity and self-reliance were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by Transcendentalist philosophy. This book is full of fascinating musings and reflections. As pertinent and relevant today as it was when it was first written.

Henry David Thoreau's vision of personal freedom is indelibly etched on the American consciousness. 'We need the tonic of wildness,' Thoreau wrote in Walden, and by turning his back on town amenities to build a house on Walden Pond in 1845, he helped shape our notions of the individual, subsistence, and a moral relation to nature. Raising white beans and potatoes that he sold to his Concord neighbors, he stayed for two years; his book records both the philosophy he developed while living alone and the facts of his everyday life. Included here with the complete text of Walden are selections from Thoreau's first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; 'A Plea for Captain John Brown,' his eloquent defense of the American abolitionist's rebellion at Harper's Ferry, and such masterpieces as his famous essay 'Civil Disobedience,' in which he describes a night spent in prison for refusing to pay a poll tax to a government that condoned slavery.

The Essential Henry David Thoreau Book Collection Contains four of Thoreau's best works: Walden, Or Life in the Woods On the Duty of Civil Disobedience A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers Walking

Three complete books: The Maine Woods, Walden, Cape Cod.

This carefully edited collection has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Contents: Walden (Life in the Woods) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers The Maine Woods Cape Cod A Yankee in Canada Canoeing in the Wilderness Civil Disobedience Slavery in Massachusetts Life Without Principle Excursions Natural History of Massachusetts A Walk to Wachusett The Landlord A Winter Walk The Succession of Forest Trees Walking Autumnal Tints Wild Apples Night and Moonlight Aulus Persius Flaccus The Service Sir Walter Raleigh Prayers Paradise (to be) Regained Herald of Freedom Thomas Carlyle and His Works Wendell Phillips Before the Concord Lyceum A Plea for Captain John Brown The Last Days of John Brown After the Death of John Brown Reform and the Reformers The Highland Light Dark Ages Poetry: Poems of Nature Epitaph on the World I Am a Parcel of Vain Striving Tied I Am the Autumnal Sun I Knew a Man by Sight Indeed, indeed, I cannot tell Low Anchored Cloud Mist Pray to What Earth They Who Prepare my Evening Meal Below Within the Circuit of This Plodding Life Omnipresence Inspiration (Quatrain) Mission Delay... Translations: The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus Translations from Pindar Collected Letters Biographies: Henry D. Thoreau by F. B. Sanborn Thoreau by Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.