One of the most famous non-fiction American books, Walden by Henry David Thoreau is the history of Thoreau's visit to Ralph Waldo Emerson's woodland retreat near Walden Pond. Thoreau, stirred by the philosophy of the transcendentalists, used the sojourn as an experiment in self reliance and minimalism… "so as 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,

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Thoreau's famous account of a year spent in a cabin at Walden Pond near Concord, during which he made many observations about nature, human life, and the importance of simplicity. Also includes his influential essay "Civil Disobedience," arguing that since what is law is not necessarily right, and just because the majority decides an issue doesn't automatically make that issue palatable to a man's conscience, individuals should sometimes oppose the...

In 1897, thirty-five years after Thoreau's death, Houghton Mifflin issued a two-volume oHoliday Editiono of Waldenillustrated with thirty remarkable engravings, daguerreotypes, and period photographs. In 1902 the publisher collected the work into a single volume. Now, to mark the bicentennial of Thoreau's birth in 1817, this timeless landmark is reproduced with all of the original illustrations and the complete text of his mystical, practical, magisterial...