In 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a cabin in the woods at Walden Pond to record a philosophical experiment in living: to simplify his life, to support himself entirely by his own labor, and to draw spiritual sustenance from his surroundings. The result: Walden: Or, Life in the Woods (1854).  In 1846, Thoreau refused to pay a mandated poll tax, refusing to support a government that protected slavery and had launched an aggressive war against Mexico. In his essay “Civil Disobedience,� Thoreau argues that it is the duty of every citizen to disobey immoral laws—and willingly suffer the legal consequences for doing so.

Walden (1854), Henry David Thoreau's landmark meditation on the importance of solitude, reflection, and proximity to nature, is presented in this Norton Library edition alongside three of his most influential political essays: "Civil Disobedience," "Slavery in Massachusetts," and "A Plea for Captain John Brown." An introduction by Jedediah Britton-Purdy reacquaints Thoreau to the contemporary reader a nuanced account of Thoreau's historical and intellectual contexts, inviting a new generation to connect with the transcendentalist's timeless philosophy.

In 1857 Henry David Thoreau moved to a small cabin in the woods near Walden Pond where he lived as a recluse from society for just over two years. In his time of self-prescribed isolation, Thoreau recorded his daily routine and reflections in an effort to get away from the noise brought about by a mainstream society. His work became one of the most influential American literary works of all time. Thoreau's daily journal entries became the foundation for one of the most well-known works of Transcendental philosophy to this day. Published as one title, Walden is a quasi-memoir and naturalist manifesto that has withstood the test of time. The work continues to inspire generations to switch it up, unplug, and revert to the higher calling of nature.

Meditations on human existence, society, government and other topics.

In 1857 Henry David Thoreau moved to a small cabin in the woods near Walden Pond where he lived as a recluse from society for just over two years. In his time of self-prescribed isolation, Thoreau recorded his daily routine and reflections in an effort to get away from the noise brought about by a mainstream society. His work became one of the most influential American literary works of all time. Thoreau's daily journal entries became the foundation for one of the most well-known works of Transcendental philosophy to this day. Published as one title, Walden is a quasi-memoir and naturalist manifesto that has withstood the test of time. The work continues to inspire generations to switch it up, unplug, and revert to the higher calling of nature.

A selection of ruminative nature writing on walking and the beauty of New England, here Thoreau's characteristically wide-ranging and philosophical style offers a multitude of fascinating observations. Excursions presents Thoreau's most studied and expansive collection of writing on the natural world. An early advocate of conservationism, he discusses here, in mesmerising prose, the complex but essential relationship between man and nature. This edition includes a remarkable Biographical Sketch by Thoreau's great contemporary and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson.

This choice collection of Thoreau's nature writing includes the essays 'The Succession of Forest Trees', 'Walking', and 'Autumnal Tints' - each one an explorative reach into the heart of the natural world. Thoreau's travels through the woods of New England are not only physical journeys through some of the most awe-inspiring landscapes in America but also spiritual excursions of the mind.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. "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. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. " - Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Philosopher, naturalist and rugged individualist, Thoreau has inspired generations of readers to think for themselves and to find meaning and beauty in nature. This representative sampling includes five of his most frequently read and cited essays: "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" (1849), "Life without Principle" (1863), "Slavery in Massachusetts" (1854), "A Plea for Captain John Brown" (1869) and "Walking" (1862). Reprinted from standard editions.

Henry David Thoreau is considered one of the leading figures in early American literature, and Walden is without doubt his most influential book. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful hardbacks make perfect gifts for book lovers, or wonderful additions to your own collection. This edition includes a new afterword by Sam Gilpin. Walden recounts the author's experiences living in a small house in the woods around Walden Pond near Concord in Massachusetts. Thoreau constructed the house himself, with the help of a few friends, to see if he could live 'deliberately' - independently and apart from society. The result is an intriguing work which blends natural history with philosophical insights, and includes many illuminating quotations from other authors. Thoreau's wooden shack has won a place for itself in the collective American psyche, a remarkable achievement for a book with such modest and rustic beginnings.

As a unique feature, the Third Edition includes generous excerpts from Thoreau's journal, reprinted by special arrangements with Princeton University Press from the definitive edition of his writings. Spanning the years 1845-54, these selections vividly display Thoreau's intensive exploration of his local landscape; the fusion of literary and natural history field work that informs Walden, "Walking," and "Wild Apples"; and the growth of his environmental imagination. "Reviews and Posthumous Assessments" for this edition collects eight new reviews of Thoreau's antislavery and late environmental essays as well as of Walden. To the influential portraits of Thoreau by Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell, the Third Edition adds John Burroughs's "Another Word on Thoreau," his response to them and to his great predecessor. "Recent Criticism" includes eighteen selections of the best historical, political, philosophical, poststructuralist, and environmental criticism of Thoreau's writing since the mid-twentieth century. To classic pieces by E. B. White, Leo Marx, Barbara Johnson, and Stanley Cavell, the Third Edition adds essays by nine new contributors, among them Laurence Buell, Laura Dassow Walls, Evan Carton, Robert A. Gross, Albert J. von Frank, Steven Fink, and William Rossi. A Chronology of Thoreau's life and work, new to the Third Edition, and an expanded and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) championed the belief that people of conscience were at liberty to follow their own opinion. In these selections from his writings, we see Thoreau the individualist and opponent of injustice. "Civil Disobedience" (1849), composed following Thoreau's imprisonment for refusing to pay his taxes in protest against slavery and the Mexican War, is an eloquent declaration of the principles that make revolution inevitable in times of political dishonor. "Solitude," from his masterpiece, Walden (1854), poetically describes Thoreau's oneness with nature and the companionship solitude offers to those who want to be rid of the travails of the world to discover themselves. "Life without Principle" (posthumously published 1863) decries the way in which excessive devotion to business and money coarsens the fabric of society: in merely making a living, the meaning of life gets lost.

"What a wilderness walk for a man to take alone!...Here was traveling of the old heroic kind over the unaltered face of nature." Henry David Thoreau

Over a period of three years, Thoreau made three trips to the largely unexplored woods of Maine. He climbed mountains, paddled a canoe by moonlight, and dined on cedar beer, hemlock tea and moose lips. Taking notes constantly, Thoreau was just as likely to turn his observant eye to the habits and languages of the Abnaki Indians or the arduous life of the logger as he was to the workings of nature. He acutely observed the rivers, lakes, mountains, wolves, moose, and stars in the dark sky. He also told of nights sitting by the campfire, and of meeting men who communicated with each other by writing on the trunks of trees. In The Maine Woods, Thoreau captured a wilder side of America and revealed his own adventurous spirit.

A beautiful illustrated edition of Thoreau's classic treatise on man and nature. "Our life is frittered away by detail. . . . Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" Henry David Thoreau built his small cabin on the shore of Walden Pond in 1845. For the next two years, he lived there as simply as possible, learning to eliminate the unnecessary material and spiritual details that intrude upon human happiness. Thoreau described his experiences in Walden, using vivid, forceful prose that transforms his reflections on nature into richly evocative metaphors. In a world obsessed with technology and luxury, this American classic about seeking "the essential facts of life" seems more relevant today than ever. This beautiful, fully illustrated edition of Walden brings a rarely seen visual and artistic dimension to Thoreau's philosophical masterpiece.