Most Popular Books by Henry David Thoreau

A collection of essential writings features Thoreau''s poetry and essays on nature, materialism, conformity, and politics; including such works as "Slavery in Massachusetts," "Civil Disobedience," "A Winter Walk," and "Life Without Principle."

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Henry David Thoreau ( July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, 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 Resistance to Civil Government (also known as Civil Disobedience), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. Thoreau''s books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and "Yankee" love of 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. He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau''s philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Thoreau is sometimes cited as an anarchist. Though Civil Disobedience seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government - "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government" - the direction of this improvement points toward 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." Richard T. Drinnon partly blames Thoreau for the ambiguity, noting that Thoreau''s "sly satire, his liking for wide margins for his writing, and his fondness for paradox provided ammunition for widely divergent interpretations of ''Civil Disobedience''."

An American masterwork in praise of nature, self-reliance, and the simple life"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."In 1845, the transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau moved from his home in the town of Concord, Massachusetts, to a small cabin he built by hand on the shores of Walden Pond. He spent the next two years alone in the woods, learning to live self-sufficiently and to take his creative and moral inspiration from nature. Part memoir, part philosophical treatise, part environmental manifesto, Walden is Thoreau''s inspirational account of those extraordinary years and one of the most influential books ever written.

This Library of America edition collects for the first time in one volume the four full-length works in which Henry David Thoreau combined his poetic sensibility, classical learning, philosophical austerity, and Yankee love of practical detail into literary masterpieces on humanity’s communion with nature. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is based on a boat trip Thoreau took with his brother in 1839 from Concord, Massachusetts, to Concord, New Hampshire. Ten years in the writing (it was the book he retired to Walden to work on) and incorporating essays, passages from his journal, and some of his best poems, it is a superbly crafted achievement, its texture enriched by the idealism of the Transcendentalists, the delighted wordplay of an imaginative linguist, the individualism of a young America, and the earthiness of a lover of nature. Walden is a personal declaration of independence, a social experiment, and a voyage of spiritual discovery, set within the seasonal cycle of a year’s “Life in the Woods.” “Simplify, simplify” is the beat of its “more distant drummer”—to abandon waste and illusion, to get to the bottom of life’s essential needs, and to practice a new economy for humane living. Its witty and pointed rhetoric brings together language and nature, the human and nonhuman in unusual conjunctions that resonate with symbolic meanings. A manual of self-reliance as well as a masterpiece of style, it is one of the most fervently loved classics of American literature. The Maine Woods is an account of three trips taken by boat and canoe in 1846, 1853, and 1857 through an unexplored interior bypassed by westward expansion. It describes the virgin rivers and forests of Maine, the customs of woodsmen and Indian guides, the hunting of moose, and the effects of the timber industry and encroaching settlement. An early and eloquent plea for conservation by a farsighted naturalist, its close observation of the American wild becomes an examination of “the motives which carry men into the wilderness.” Cape Cod is the bleakest of Thoreau’s works, resembling Melville’s prose in its vision of the titanic indifference of nature. Cape Cod appears as both ocean and desert, a vast expanse of shipwrecks and barren soil, peopled by hardy, weathered inhabitants who seem survivors from the age of the first Pilgrims. Based upon his own visits and upon accounts from the earliest times, it is an unsentimental study of human endurance in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862; born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American by birth, descendant of French immigrants was a teacher, philosopher, naturist and writer. He is considered to be one of the founders of United States literature since at that time it was just emerging. He is famous for having proposed a form of rebellion against the state called civil disobedience. He is also famous for having lived for more than two years in an isolated cabin in a forest, to experience life in nature, an experience that he reflected in a book entitled Walden since his home was located near Lake Walden Pond. Thoreau has more than thirty works being the best known Civil Disobedience (initially published as Resistance to Civil Government) (1849) and Walden (1854). In addition, he participated in the clandestine activity of transporting slaves to Canada to grant them their freedom.

Why buy our paperbacks? Standard Font size of 10 for all books High Quality Paper Fulfilled by Amazon Expedited shipping 30 Days Money Back Guarantee BEWARE of Low-quality sellers Don''t buy cheap paperbacks just to save a few dollars. Most of them use low-quality papers & binding. Their pages fall off easily. Some of them even use very small font size of 6 or less to increase their profit margin. It makes their books completely unreadable. How is this book unique? Unabridged (100% Original content) Formatted for e-reader Font adjustments & biography included Illustrated About On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau On the Duty of Civil Disobedience is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).

How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About Walden by Henry David Thoreau Walden, by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. First published in 1854, it details Thoreau''s experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. The book compresses the time into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development.

The essay Resistance to Civil Government, also referred to as On the Duty of Civil Disobedience or civil Disobedience for brief, was authored by Henry David Thoreau, an American writer who specialized in transcendentalism. It was initially published in 1849. In it, Thoreau says people shouldn''t allow governments to overrule and weaken their consciences, and that they''ve a responsibility to avoid such acquiescence from making it possible for the authorities to utilize them as agents of injustice. Thoreau''s disdain for slavery and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) have been elements in his motivation. Here is the complete text of the novel with the followings annotations: *Biographical Information: Original life and, education 1817-1837: Henry David Thoreau was created David Henry Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts, into probably the "modest New England family" of John Thoreau, a pencil maker, and Cynthia Dunbar. The father of his was of French Protestant descent.The paternal grandfather of his were definitely created on the UK crown dependency island of Jersey. The maternal grandfather of his, Asa Dunbar, led Harvard''s 1766 pupil "Butter Rebellion", the original recorded pupil protest in the American colonies.David Henry was named after his just lately deceased paternal uncle, David Thoreau. He started calling himself Henry David when he finished college; he never ever petitioned to create a legal name change.