Henry David Thoreau s Walden is published
Henry David Thoreaus classic Walden or A Life in the Woods is required reading in many classrooms today.But when it was first publishedon this day in 1854it sold just around 300 copies a year.The American transcendentalist writers work is a first-person account of his experimental time of simple living at Walden Pond in Concord Massachusetts starting in 1845 for two years and two months.The book explores Thoreaus views on nature politics and philosophy.Thoreau was a 27-year-old Harvard graduate when he moved to Walden.
He built the simple 10-by-15-foot cabin along the shore of the 62-acre pond a mile from the nearest neighbor on land owned by his friend poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.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 he wrote.His only income came from the labor of his own hands.
Thoreau farmed the land eating and selling his crops which included beans potatoes corn peas and turnips made frequent trips into town (including to see his mother who lived up the road) and entertained visitors.The initial print run was 2000 copies with each book priced at 1 and took five years to sell out.Later shortened to Walden per Thoreaus request it was one of just two full-length books published by the author (though he published shorter works including the notable essay Civil Disobedience).His first book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers released in 1849 was also written during his time at Walden as a memorial to his late brother John.READ MORE Thoreau Started a Forest Fire a Year Before Writing Walden
