자본주의 사회주의 대안적 경제 은퇴후: Henry David Thoreau by Laura Dassow Walls - Ebook

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Henry David Thoreau: A Life Hardcover – July 7, 2017

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“Walden. Yesterday I came here to live.” That entry from the journal of Henry David Thoreau, and the intellectual journey it began, would by themselves be enough to place Thoreau in the American pantheon. His attempt to “live deliberately” in a small woods at the edge of his hometown of Concord has been a touchstone for individualists and seekers since the publication of Walden in 1854.

But there was much more to Thoreau than his brief experiment in living at Walden Pond. A member of the vibrant intellectual circle centered on his neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was also an ardent naturalist, a manual laborer and inventor, a radical political activist, and more. Many books have taken up various aspects of Thoreau’s character and achievements, but, as Laura Dassow Walls writes, “Thoreau has never been captured between covers; he was too quixotic, mischievous, many-sided.” Two hundred years after his birth, and two generations after the last full-scale biography, Walls restores Henry David Thoreau to us in all his profound, inspiring complexity.

Walls traces the full arc of Thoreau’s life, from his early days in the intellectual hothouse of Concord, when the American experiment still felt fresh and precarious, and “America was a family affair, earned by one generation and about to pass to the next.” By the time he died in 1862, at only forty-four years of age, Thoreau had witnessed the transformation of his world from a community of farmers and artisans into a bustling, interconnected commercial nation. What did that portend for the contemplative individual and abundant, wild nature that Thoreau celebrated?

Drawing on Thoreau’s copious writings, published and unpublished, Walls presents a Thoreau vigorously alive in all his quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos. We meet the man whose belief in human freedom and the value of labor made him an uncompromising abolitionist; the solitary walker who found society in nature, but also found his own nature in the society of which he was a deeply interwoven part. And, running through it all, Thoreau the passionate naturalist, who, long before the age of environmentalism, saw tragedy for future generations in the human heedlessness around him.

“The Thoreau I sought was not in any book, so I wrote this one,” says Walls. The result is a Thoreau unlike any seen since he walked the streets of Concord, a Thoreau for our time and all time.

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Print length

640 pages

Language

English

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Publication date

July 7, 2017

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Editorial Reviews

Review

A New York Times Notable Book

― New York Times

"One of the ten best books of 2017."

― Wall Street Journal

"Laura Dassow Walls has written an engaging, sympathetic, and subtly learned biography that mounts a strong case for Thoreau's importance. . . . Thoreau's political engagement isn't exactly news, but Walls foregrounds it vividly. . . . The details are sometimes wonderful. . . . Walls's Thoreau is truly a man for all seasons, a person who, in many ways, is a 21st-century liberal’s idea of our best self: pro-environmental, antiracist, anti-imperialist, feminist, reformist, spiritual but not religious. It is extraordinary how much there was in Thoreau to support this interpretation, and part of the power of Walls's book is how she traces these liberal and humane preoccupations to the radicalism of his family and of Concord’s intellectual life."

― Nation

"In this definitive biography, the many facets of Thoreau are captured with grace and scholarly rigor by English professor Walls. By convention, she observes, there were 'two Thoreaus, both of them hermits, yet radically at odds with each other. One speaks for nature; the other for social justice.' Not so here. To reveal the author of Walden as one coherent person is Walls's mission, which she fully achieves; as a result of her vigilant focus Thoreau holds the center--no mean achievement in a work through whose pages move the great figures and cataclysmic events of the period. Emerson, Hawthorne, and Whitman are here; so are Frederick Douglass and John Brown. Details of everyday life lend roundness to this portrait as we follow Thoreau's progress as a writer and also as a reader. Walls attends to the breadth of Thoreau's social and political involvements (notably his concern for Native Americans and Irish-Americans and his committed abolitionism) and the depth of his scientific pursuits. The wonder is that, given her book's richness, Walls still leaves the reader eager to read Thoreau. Her scholarly blockbuster is an awesome achievement, a merger of comprehensiveness in content with pleasure in reading."

― Publishers Weekly

"I've always been slightly skeptical of biography doorstops. . . . I read the book in two sittings. It will not be used as a doorstop--ever. . . . Walls, scouring his published and unpublished writings, gives her readers hundreds of these fleeting chances to catch sight of a beautifully untamed but distinctly American existence. . . . Walls comes as close as any biographer has to giving us the wild Thoreau--disorienting and bewildering."

-- John Kaag ― Chronicle of Higher Education

"Superb. . . . Exuberant. . . . Walls paints a moving portrait of a brilliant, complex man."

-- Fen Montaigne ― New York Times

"A superbly researched and written literary portrait that broadens our understanding of the great American writer and pre-eminent naturalist. . . . Magnificent. . . . A sympathetic and honest portrait that fully captures the private and public life of this singular American figure."

― Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Study the living being, not its dead shell. And this is precisely what Walls has done in her definitive life of this opinionated, often difficult, but always interesting writer. . . . To her great credit, Walls gives us so much more than the quotable Thoreau, the bane of the American literature survey course. . . . She immerses herself and her readers fully in Thoreau’s environment, the fields, meadows, woods, and streets of Concord. Walls’s book is, first and foremost, the product of an extraordinary act of empathy. But it is also an outstanding literary achievement. No biographer has more credibly evoked those blisteringly cold, crystal-clear New England winter days, days that, thanks to Walls’s prose, sparkle, glimmer, and chill for us the way they once did for Thoreau. . . . The great imaginative accomplishment of Walls’s book is to put Thoreau firmly back into the community that fostered and, for the most part, protected him."

― Weekly Standard

"As Laura Dassow Walls makes clear in her excellent Henry David Thoreau: A Life, he was a man of obsessively high principles, self-contained, a stickler for details who

insisted on his own way of seeing the world, however quirky. . . . Walls earns her keep, digging into Thoreau’s aphoristic letters and journals, finding acute reflections by his contemporaries, and drawing a wonderfully brisk and satisfying portrait. . ."

-- Jay Parini ― Times Literary Supplement

"This new biography is the masterpiece that the gadfly of youthful America deserves. I have been reading Henry David Thoreau and reading about him for 40 years; I’ve written a book about him myself. Yet often I responded to Laura Dassow Walls’s compelling narrative with mutterings such as 'I never knew that' and 'I hadn’t thought of it that way.' I found myself caught up in these New England lives all over again. . . . On a foundation of rigorous scholarship, Walls resurrects Thoreau’s life with a novelist’s sympathy and pacing."

-- Michael Sims ― Washington Post

"Beautifully written, this is a substantial volume in which every page feels essential. You won’t want to put it down."

-- Dianne Timblin ― American Scientist

"Not only does the biographer capture the breadth and depth of Thoreau’s relations and work, she leaves us tantalized, wanting more."

-- Barbara Lloyd McMichael ― Seattle Times

"While a large body of biographical studies has advanced our understanding of Thoreau, a work of literary biography that synthesizes this knowledge has long been overdue, one that reintroduces us to Thoreau and changes the way we see him. This is the achievement of Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls. In this vivid, perceptive portrait, Walls reconciles several decades’ worth of scholarship into a new, authoritative biography that presents Thoreau in greater depth, clarity, and factual completeness. . . . Laura Dassow Walls has written what is sure to become the definitive biography of Henry David Thoreau."

― The New England Quarterly

"Luminous. . . . Through Walls's biography, Thoreau once more challenges us to see, with his passion and intensity, the world in all its cruelty and its splendour, riddled with human lies and abundant in natural truths."

― Financial Times

"Splendid . . . offers a multifaceted view of the many contradictions of his personality."

-- Robert Pogue Harrison ― New York Review of Books

"Exhaustive, exhilarating. . . . With a light touch and prose equal to her subject, she introduces us to a Thoreau we need right now: a scientist, a moralist, a radical democrat, and an artist who might stir us to realize the highest ideals of self and nation."

― Hedgehog Review

"Laura Dassow Walls has written a grand, big-hearted biography, as compulsively readable as a great nineteenth century novel, chock-full of new and fascinating detail about Thoreau, his family, his friends, and his town. Walls's magnificent--landmark--achievement is the best all around biography of Thoreau ever written. It not only brings Thoreau vividly back to life, it will fundamentally change how we see him. We will hear no more about the 'hermit of Walden Pond.' Walls has given us a new socially engaged Thoreau for a new era, a freedom fighter for John Brown and America, and a necessary prophet and spokesman for Concord Mass. and Planet Earth."

-- Robert D. Richardson, author of Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind

"This volume is a rich introduction to Thoreau for those unfamiliar with him and an almost casually brilliant reintroduction for those who know and love him."

― Choice

"Will be for many years to come the biography that readers will turn to in fruitful search of a life 'whole and entire.' It will supply good answers to the question of why Thoreau still matters, two hundred years after his birth."

― Modern Intellectual History

"Every year, there is at least one new book about the life of Henry David Thoreau. But only once per generation is there a new, all-inclusive, scholarly biography. Laura Dassow Walls's 666-page door stopper is the one we have been waiting for--the most authoritative biography of Thoreau ever written."

― Environmental History

About the Author

Laura Dassow Walls is the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author most recently of Henry David Thoreau: A Life, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; 1st Edition (July 7, 2017)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 640 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 022634469X

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226344690

Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.25 pounds

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.1 x 6 x 1.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #461,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

#605 in Environmentalist & Naturalist Biographies

#1,027 in American Literature Criticism

#2,278 in Author Biographies

Customer Reviews: 4.7 out of 5 stars 192 ratings

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Recent Questions

Thoreau stated: "As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness." Does the author suggest any meaning/meanings behind quotes such as this one? Does Thoreau himself explain or dive deeper into his now quotable quotes (if you will)? Thanks.

Like One Year Ago Add Your Answer

One question I didn't see answered was does any of Thoreau's living relatives, such as a distant cousin, receive a percentage of sales from books sold these days? I know his immediate family died without direct heirs. I wonder who gets the money from book sales when that happens. It sure wasn't Thoreau or his immediate family since not many copies of Walden sold much while they were alive.

Like One Year Ago Add Your Answer

See all 3 questions about Henry David Thoreau…

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

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Average rating4.50 · Rating details · 586 ratings · 116 reviews

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Ken

Aug 31, 2017Ken rated it it was amazing

Shelves: finished-in-2017, biography

The thing about biography is, if it's well-written, you feel as if you've lost a friend at the end. And why not? After keeping the man company for 500 pages, from youth to bitter end, he begins to seep into your pores a bit. You sweat the subject, begin to feel indignant when he does, elated when he is, worried about this thing there's never enough of -- time.

I knew a thing or two about H. D. Thoreau going in, mostly by dint of Walden, a book I've read straight through once and dabbled in multiple times. I also finished annotated selections from his Journals a few years back. In that case, I used it as a now-and-then read over the course of a great expanse of time. As it was written, then.

Still, Walls' well-written story contained many, many facts and insights, from little ones like his real name (David Henry Thoreau) to big ones like his championing of a man initially reviled after his failed raid on Harper's Ferry (John Brown). The biography also dispels the popular stereotype of Thoreau as stolid curmudgeon, stick-in-the-Concord-mud, and what-not. She humanizes the man, makes him more nuanced and humorous and warm.

Did you know that more people in Thoreau's Concord never married than did? Henry was just another one. He married (but of course!) woods and pond, beach and sea. And his last words ("Moose, Indian") are probably apocryphal and certainly, even if uttered, not his last (they were, in fact, "Now comes good sailing.").

Most amazing is how seamlessly Walls weaves quotes from Thoreau's books and journals and lectures (not to mention quotes from the books and journals and lectures of his contemporaries), all while brushing things up with her own sparkling and at times poetic prose.

Revolutionary? Yeah, kind of. Civil Disobedience was just the start. As he aged, Thoreau was more and more about calling the federal government out when it violated the very rights it was supposed to represent via the Constitution and the Declaration. Scientist? In a big way. This guy walked everywhere. Everywhere. And every day. Noticing and picking up all manner of specimens, informed as he was by constant readings, including Darwin's Origin of Species. Businessman? Of the family business, yes, as pencil makers extraordinaire, not to mention, thanks to his own skills, as a well-respected surveyor.

Like all good biographies, this is not only the history of a man but a history of his times. You'll learn not a little about 19th-century New England, Indians, the anti-slavery movement (the Thoreau house had Underground Railroad credentials), biology, and the approaching Civil War. There's also that perennial subject, the weather. At one point, the winter grows so cold (20 below zero F) that the ground cracks open with booming sounds. In our fossil-fuel heated world today, Massachusetts will never see the likes of this again.

In short, by the end of his days, and after mixing with Emerson and Alcott and Hawthorne and even, one day, Walt Whitman, Thoreau was a legend and a symbol in his hometown. As for his influence, it would only grow and never subside, much like the waves made when you toss a stone into Walden Pond today.

Just think of the shorelines of that pond as the world. Thoreau is Everyman and his influence knows no borders. (less)

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Diane S ☔

Apr 25, 2019Diane S ☔ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: lor-2019, 5000-2019

For the last several months I have spent time in Thoreau's world. His and the other Concord notables. After finishing Walden, I had an impression of this man, as one who thought himself above others, high minded and a bit of a snob. I did, however, think highly of his love for nature, and his non materialism, minimalist stance on life. After reading this biography of him, my feelings have completely changed, to one of deep admiration. The author does a fantastic job of taking us through this man's life, his beliefs, his journeys, his dependability, and his unquenchable thirst for knowledge. His love of nature, justice, family and friends. I immensely enjoyed the time we spent together.

If nothing else it shows one should not judge a person from one book alone. (less)

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Stefania Dzhanamova

Jun 28, 2021Stefania Dzhanamova rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biographies

Henry David Thoreau was the last male descendant of a French ancestor who came to the United States from the Isle of Guernsey. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 12th of July, 1817 and graduated from Harvard College in 1837 without any literary distinction. He seldom thanked colleges for their service to him. After leaving the University, he joined his brother in teaching a private school, which he soon renounced. His father was a manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry applied himself for a time to this craft, believing he could make a better pencil than was then in use. After completing his experiments, he exhibited his work to chemists and artists in Boston, and having obtained their certificates to its excellence, returned home contented. His friends congratulated him that he had now opened his way to fortune. But he replied that he should never make another pencil. “Why should I? I would not do again what I have done once.” He resumed his endless walks and miscellaneous studies, making every day some new acquaintance with Nature; yet he never spoke of zoology or botany because he was not interested in technical and textual science.

At this time, he was a strong, healthy youth, fresh from college. All his friends were on the lookout for lucrative professions, so it required a rare decision to refuse all the accustomed paths and keep his solitary freedom at the cost of letting down the expectations of his family and friends. But Thoreau never faltered. He'd been born a dissident. He refused to give up his large ambition of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or profession, choosing a much more comprehensive calling — the art of living well. Never idle or self-indulgent, he preferred, when he wanted money, earning it by doing manual labor agreeable to him: building a boat or a fence, planting, surveying or other short work. With his hardy habits and few wants, his skill in wood-craft, and his powerful arithmetic, he was very competent to live in any part of the world. It would cost him less to supply his wants than another.

He was bred to no profession; he never married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh; he drank no wine; he never knew the use of tobacco; and though a naturalist, he used neither traps nor guns. He chose to be "the bachelor of thought and Nature." He knew how to be poor without the least hint of squalor or inelegance. He had no temptations to fight against — no appetites, no passions, no taste for elegant trifles. He disliked fine houses, dresses, the manners and talk of highly cultivated people. He much preferred a good Indian, and considered these refinements as impediments to conversation, wishing to meet his companion on the simplest terms. He declined invitations to dinner parties. “They make their pride,” he said, “in making their dinner cost much; I make my pride in making my dinner cost little.” When asked at table what dish he preferred, he answered, “The nearest.”

Solitary and ascetic as he was, he threw himself heartily into the company of young people whom he loved, and whom he delighted to entertain with the endless anecdotes of his experiences by field and river: and he was always ready to lead a huckleberry-party or a search for chestnuts or grapes.

He always spoke the truth. It interested all bystanders to know what Henry would say; and he did not disappoint expectation, but used an original judgment on each occasion. In 1845 he built himself a small house on the shores of Walden Pond, and lived there two years alone, a life of labor and study. This action was quite fit for him. As soon as he had exhausted the advantages of that solitude, however, he abandoned it. In 1847, not approving some uses to which the public expenditure was applied, he refused to pay his town tax, and was put in jail. A friend paid the tax for him, and he was released. No opposition or ridicule left any impression on him. He coldly and fully stated his opinion without affecting to believe that it was the opinion of the company. It was of no consequence if every one present held the opposite opinion.

Despite standing for abolition of slavery, abolition of tariffs, almost for abolition of government, he found himself not only unrepresented in actual politics, but almost equally opposed to every class of reformers. Yet he paid the tribute of his uniform respect to the Anti-Slavery party. One man he honored with exceptional regard — Captain John Brown. He sent notices to most houses in Concord that he would speak in a public hall on the character of John Brown, and invited all people to come. The Republican Committee, the Abolitionist Committee, sent him word that it was premature and not advisable. He replied, “I did not send to you for advice, but to announce that I am to speak.” The hall was filled at an early hour by people of all parties, and his earnest eulogy of the hero was heard by all respectfully, by many with a sympathy that surprised themselves.

Thoreau was of short stature, firmly built, with serious blue eyes, his face covered in the late years with a beard. His senses were acute, his frame hardy, his hands strong and skilful in the use of tools. He posessed a wonderful fitness of body and mind. He could find his path in the woods at night, he said, better by his feet than his eyes. He could estimate the measure of a tree very well by his eye; he could estimate the weight of a calf or a pig, like a dealer. He was a good swimmer, runner, and boatman. He said he wanted every stride his legs made. The length of his walk made the length of his writing. If shut up in the house he did not write at all.

Thoreau dedicated himself with such entire love to the fields, hills and waters of his native town, that he made them known and interesting to all reading Americans, and to people overseas. The river on whose banks he was born and died he knew from its springs to its confluence with the Merrimack. He had made summer and winter observations on it for many years, and at every hour of the day and night. He was patient. He knew how to sit immovable until the bird, the reptile, the fish should resume its habits, or, moved by curiosity, come to him and watch him.

Thoreau was sincerity itself. He was a truth-speaker, capable of the most deep and strict conversation; he was a friend who knew not only the secret of friendship, but was admired by those few persons who resorted to him as their confessor and knew the value of his mind and great heart. He thought that without religion or devotion of some kind nothing great was ever accomplished. He devoted himself to Nature.

This book is a good overview of the life and, more importantly, character of the odd man of Concord. It is well-written and compelling. Recommendable. (less)

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Sher

Apr 24, 2019Sher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction

Will be one of my top 10 reads for 2019. A detailed account of all Thoreau's major works and a cultural history of Concord during the 19th C. All the big theme of 19th C American cultural life are covered in this book with the big events too such as the John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, The Civil War, slavery, Native American views, Darwin, and the coming ravages of industrialization and capitalism. In addition Thoreau's complex personality and a tracing of his friendships with Emerson, Channing, and others beautifully captures a man who is known for solitude, but who in fact loved friendship, family, and companionship. Most of his walks were taken with a companion. Even his famous amazingly long journal was his companion. A great stepping off point from reading _Walden_, and a biography that will lead me many more places. Beautifully written and well researched- just a treasure- like Thoreau himself. (less)

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James Murphy

Oct 19, 2017James Murphy rated it it was amazing

Those who admire Thoreau and his intimacy with nature around Concord and New England may have a sense of a legendary man equal to it, one who walked around in it confident it held few mysteries for him. The strength of Walls's portrait of Thoreau is that she writes him as a man who knew some things about how water flows and about birds, who understood the leaf and the way of squirrels, but who was still humbled by the natural world. Her book is the biography of a rather unaffected man who spent his whole life observing the details of the surroundings he inhabited, mostly around Concord, his home, but he also knew Maine and Cape Cod well and even made a trip as far as Minnesota near the end of his life. What impressed me is she allows him to be a citizen of Concord like any other, a man who worked at making pencils or surveying land or helping neighbors, even as he was always studying berries or ducks.

She says she wrote the biography because the life she sought, that of Thoreau the writer, was not in any book. So she wrote this life. It does emphasize his writing. She says Thoreau wanted to be taken seriously as a writer, to be admired for his work in the same ways Emerson was admired. She describes how hard he worked at it, publishing 2 books and many essays in his lifetime. I'd not known before how much he wrote for magazines or how many lectures he wrote to give before gatherings in the region. I'd not understood before how intensely he wanted to be known for his poetry and how deeply disappointed he was when he wasn't. His successes were in the book Walden and in his essays. And the Journal which became famous after his death.

This biography goes with others I have to help form a more whole picture of the man. I doubt it completes him. It is a comprehensive look at Thoreau the writer. The earlier biographer I most admire, Robert D. Richardson, wrote such a lengthy and glowing blurb for Walls's book that anyone reading it has to acknowledge that she does justice to her subject. (less)

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David Guy

Sep 01, 2017David Guy rated it it was amazing

This is one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. Right at the moment I can’t think of a better one. And it comes at an ideal moment for me.

The official occasion is the bicentennial of Thoreau’s birth, in 1817. There is a whole wave of writing coming out about him now. Thoreau’s life speaks to me because I’ve retired from my job at the university, and have a new opportunity to live my life deliberately, as he advocated (though I’ve tried always to do that). It also—rather unexpectedly—spoke to me about our political moment, and showed a side of Thoreau I hadn’t seen before.

In 1850, when he was at work on the book that would eventually become Walden—one of the most optimistic and essentially moral works in all of our literature—the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, saying that any fugitive slave in the country had to be returned to his owners, whether he was in a slave state or free. People who refused to assist in returning the slaves were themselves breaking the law. Many people in Massachusetts were infuriated by this law, and by the fact that their own Senator, Daniel Webster, had voted for it. Thoreau’s family, his mother and sisters, were heavily involved in the abolitionist movement, and continued to be, essentially becoming criminals. Thoreau assisted them and fulminated in rage against the law in page after page of his journal. Walden was finally published in the midst of this cloud, and at this tumultuous time in our history.

One of the things I most appreciate about Walls’ book is the way it takes us into this past time. It gave me a real feeling for what it was to live in a country where Thoreau could say that “In wildness is the preservation of the world,” but where a railroad ran right past Walden Pond, and trains interrupted the calm multiple times per day. It was a world where people made do with what they had, and got along on amounts of money that now seem tiny. Thoreau got the lumber for his Walden Pond house from someone else’s, and his house was eventually moved and the lumber used for another project. He lived for two years in a house that was roughly the size of the room I’m working in (10’ x 15’). There was no privy.

His own family was not wealthy by any means—Henry had to be a scholarship boy at Harvard—but his father was a successful businessman; a relative had discovered a graphite mine and staked a claim to it, and John Thoreau started a pencil factory and ran it all his life. Henry often worked there and inherited the business when his father died. The pencil was an important instrument in Thoreau’s career, freeing him from ink wells and enabling him to take notes out in the field, on his long walks. Among other projects as a young man he perfected the design of the modern pencil.

Walls’ book is not really revisionist, but every biography paints a different portrait of its subject, and she has a different take on Thoreau than any I had previously read. She doesn’t see him as the grouchy curmudgeon that others have portrayed; he was a sociable and curious man who talked to people all the time, all his life, and had many close friends. He was not as outgoing as his brother John, and was slightly weirder, more the solitary studious type. When John suddenly died of tetanus at the age of 26, having nicked a finger with a razor, Henry was devastated, seemed to become more introverted and to go deeper. It wasn’t quite like William Blake claiming that after his brother died he was in constant communication with the other world, but it had a similar spiritual effect.

It was startling to me—though this fact was sitting there in all the chronologies I’ve read of the man—that Thoreau was only 28 when he went to Walden Pond, 30 when he left. He didn’t go to become a hermit, according to Wall—plenty of people came to see him at his little house, and he usually went home for Sunday dinner most weeks—but to devote himself to his writing; he’d been floundering around since graduating from Harvard, had worked as a teacher, worked briefly in the pencil factory, tried to make money by publishing writing or giving lectures. He finally decided to reduce his needs and see how that worked. He got a substantial amount of work done at the pond, wrote a draft of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, took the trip and wrote the notes that would later become the posthumous book The Maine Woods, and of course did the journal writing that he would eventually turn into his masterpiece. He left not because he was tired of the experiment but because Emerson was going to Europe for a year and wanted Thoreau to look after his family. It was Emerson who owned the land, and like a shrewd Yankee businessman he immediately rented the house to someone else. Otherwise Thoreau might have lived there much longer.

For the rest of his life he lived in his family’s attic and made a living largely as a surveyor—a job in which he took great pride—and a lecturer. Many of his most famous essays, including “Walking” and “Civil Disobedience,” were written first as lectures, and he gave them repeatedly, in a world before YouTube. The man I’ve always thought of as a dour moralist was apparently quite funny as a lecturer, and left people rolling in the aisles (I’ve found parts of Walden hilarious). He was also extremely energetic as a writer and scholar; in 1852-53 alone, he wrote 1253 pages in his journal, 500 pages in the notebooks he kept about Native Americans, and two new drafts of Walden.

That having been said, he spent plenty of time going on hiking expeditions, climbing mountains, accompanying people on hunting expeditions, though he himself didn’t hunt (he did eat the meat others got. Despite that chapter Higher Laws in Walden, he seems to have eaten meat all his life. But he was just as happy living on nuts and bread, whatever was available). He had close friends who accompanied him on these expeditions; he seems to have been a man who had a few close friendships, rather than many acquaintances. (Walls seems to think he was gay, though she doesn’t make a big deal of it, and there is no evidence that he ever had a sexual relationship.) He needed to make money, and wanted to publish his writing, but was not terribly successful; he published only two books, and a smattering of essays, in his lifetime. The original version of Walden sold a little over 2,000 copies.

The man was a perfectionist in everything—Walden went through multiple drafts—but he always seemed more interested in the new thing, writing up what went on that day, recording yesterday’s walk. Though there was one period in his life when he was suddenly weak, apparently from the tuberculosis bacillae making their way down into his joints, he did not suffer repeated bouts of tuberculosis, the way some writers did. But his final illness was quite debilitating; he stopped writing even in his journal. His death bed statements have all become part of Thoreau lore: “I was not aware that we had quarreled,” when an aunt asked him if he’d made his peace with God, “One life at a time,” when he was asked if he was ready for the next life, and the final murmured last words, “moose, Indians.”

Thoreau has always been one of my literary heroes, because he understood the value of writing both as a way to explore the self (his journal is said to be 2.000,000 words long) and as a way of communicating with others (if he had written only “Civil Disobedience,” his place in world history would be secure). He did live deliberately, and lived on his own terms. Walls’ biography only increased my admiration for the man. And my hat is off to her for a lifetime of scholarly work. This book is the culmination of it.

www.davidguy.org (less)

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Jim

May 04, 2021Jim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: women-writers, biography, nature

I am usually not too keen about reading biographies, especially when, in the midst of a growing admiration, must witness the death of their subjects in the last chapter. So it was with Laura Dassow Walls's Henry David Thoreau: A Life.

Thoreau has always been one of my heroes. He is probably my favorite American and one of my favorite American writers. In his short life of 44 years, he anticipated many of the good things that were to follow, such as the National Park System, whose creation was influenced by naturalist John Muir, who in turn idolized Thoreau as a source of the idea.

For it was Thoreau who thought there should be areas known as "commons" where hunting was not allowed and where nature is allowed to hold full sway. Even in his lifetime, he saw the area around Walden Pond deforested.

I loved Ms Walls's biography, which concentrated on Thoreau's writings and his journeys -- never far from home, but with large repercussions in the years that came after his death in 1862. Even at the end of his life, he became a follower and helper of John Brown, and a devoted reader of the work of Charles Darwin.

Now I have to read more of Thoreau's own words. That's what a good biography should do, send you back to the original. (less)

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Carl Safina

May 06, 2018Carl Safina rated it it was amazing

I finally finished reading the superb Thoreau biography by Laura Walls. One of those books I savored because I did not want it to end.

Every paragraph was excellent. It was like opening up the drapes and windows on a man I’d long considered a hero but knew nothing, really, about. What an incredible person and absolutely excellent book!

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John David

Apr 25, 2020John David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography-or-autobiography

I don’t know whether or not Laura Dassow Walls’ biography was specifically intended to be published in the bicentennial year of Thoreau’s birth, but if it was, there could be few gifts as memorable. Should anyone’s memory last after their death, they could hardly ask for a more dedicated or curious biographer than Walls. In a mere 500 pages, the reader sees the transformation of Thoreau from the often-stereotyped hermit and perhaps even a misanthrope into a fuller, more accurate picture of a man who was able to balance his inward life with vital social changes, and an engaged scientist whose studies of nature were deeply rooted in the ultimate concern for people and the environment we all share.

Born David Henry Thoreau (the inversion of first and last names was taken on in early adulthood) was born to a freethinking mother and a father who eventually made their living as the first great pencil manufacturers in New England. Thoreau went off to Harvard at the age of 16, and graduated four years later, but refused to pay the fee for a diploma. “Let every sheep keep its own skin,” he said, referring to the common practice of making diplomas on animal skin vellum. That same year, he founded the Concord Academy with his brother John. Its teaching philosophy eschewed rote memorization and instead tried to ignite the students’ innate curiosity and love of learning. Five years later, John developed tetanus while saving. He died in his brother’s arms.

After Harvard, Henry worked intermittently as a surveyor, publishing several articles on his excursions which we still consider today to be some of the first examples of what is called “nature writing.” In the weeks leading up to his 28th birthday, he built the 10’ by 15’ one-room cabin where he would live. On July 4, 1845 – a date one can’t help but imagine he chose because of it symbolism – he humbly began his Walden journal: “Yesterday I came here to live.” He would remain there for precisely 2 years, 2 months, and 2 days. Despite the picture that we get of Thoreau as distant and aloof, he would often talk to his neighbors. When he wanted company, he would leave a chair outside of his cabin’s door to invite visitors, and he went home once a week to have dinner with his family. During this time, Thoreau would take the notes and record the observations that eventually coalesced into “Walden Pond,” which wouldn’t be published until 1854.

After his stay at Walden, he repurposed his journals into an encyclopedic set of notebooks that catalogued nearly everything about the natural world around him, detailing everything from Darwin’s new idea of natural selection to the natural lore of Concord. In another work by Walls – “Seeing New Worlds: Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Natural Science” – she argues that Thoreau’s contributions were not just those of a curious neophyte, but were actually the observations of a serious, committed scientist.

To live fully – to live deliberately – to immerse ourselves in every moment – is the clarion command at the heart of “Walden,” and especially the journals. To take nothing for granted, to as Tennyson once put it, life live to the lees is what he exhorts us all to do. Walls’ biography is a call to live a life that – even if just to a tiny extent – is more like Thoreau’s. This book has inspired me to try to take small steps in that direction myself, and I review it in the faint hope that it will encourage others to follow along in a lifelong project of self-betterment and an increasing sense of appreciation for everything that surrounds us.

I want to take this opportunity to note that many of my comments here have been shared either fully grown or in seedling form by the three people with whom I built my own proverbial little 10’ x 15’ reading room: Hannah from the YouTube channel HannahsBooks, Peg from the channel TheHistoryShelf, and Sharon from the channel SharonGoforth. Not only did I have tremendous fun learning and sharing in their insights as we traded Voxer messages back and forth, but each one of them gave me few angles and perspectives from which to look at Thoreau. These three fellow readers allowed me, if I can steal the words of Thoreau himself, “to live deep and suck the marrow out of life” with their careful insights and thoughtful reading, and thereby made my own reading of the book that much more magical. (less)

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Rick

Jul 30, 2017Rick rated it really liked it

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Henry David Thoreau: A Life

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The Morgan Library & Museum

Join Laura Dassow Walls, author of the forthcoming Henry David Thoreau: A Life, for an illustrated presentation on the profound, inspiring complexity of Henry David Thoreau. Drawing on Thoreau’s copious writings, published and unpublished, Walls presents a Thoreau with all his quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; and the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos.

Held on July 26, 2017.

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David Goud

1 year ago

Wow. Such a loving lecture. Well done. Best way I can think of to spend this 4th of July 2020. Thank you .

BTMS

1 month ago

Thank you for this I’m 24 but my 8th great grandfather had a son named Henry David Thoreau, never heard of him didn’t think anything of him, until I saw a quote by him one day and realized I recognized the name to go on ancestry and find out it’s true. Not to imagine I shared all his views. Very small world.. happy I was just able to hear his work not the part of being related to him, his work enlightens my soul and makes me a better person. His work has changed me.

Don Skoog

2 years ago

Great lecture. By the way, Prof. Walls brings the same knowledge, humor, and insight to her book of the same title. It's well worth reading.

Greg Fuller

1 month ago

Beautiful lecture. Thank you beautiful soul. Sending pure love to the human race.❤❤❤

Henry Raphaels

1 year ago

A principled activist of his time. A naturalist who went to live with nature to better understand its beauty & awesomeness. Refused to pay taxes to prosecute the U.S.-Mexican War. Civil disobedience was his brainchild.

William Delong

2 years ago

My hero a true genius. God bless you Henry. We love you forever Henry. A most beautiful soul was Henry Thoreau, ordained by God to lift up those below. His Wisdom, temperance and courage abound throughout the ages we answer the sound of Truth of Light and immortality. God bless Henry David so mote it be.

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Friday, December 10, 2021

Henry David Thoreau by Laura Dassow Walls - Ebook | Scribd

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