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The Portable Thoreau

Self-described as 'a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher to boot', Henry David Thoreau dedicated his life to preserving his freedom as a man and as an artist. Nature was the fountainhead of his inspiration and his refuge from what he considered the follies of society. Heedless of his friends' advice to live in a more orthodox manner, he determinedly pursued his own inner bent - that of a poet-philosopher - in prose and verse, in his masterpiece Walden, from which this work is taken. Edited by noted Thoreau scholar Jeffrey S. Cramer, this edition is the new standard for those interested in discovering the great thinker's influential ideas about everything from environmentalism to limited government.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was born in Concord, Massachusetts and educated at Harvard. He became a follower and a friend of Emerson, and described himself as a mystic and a transcendentalist. Although he published only two books in his lifetime, Walden (from which this book is taken) is regarded as a literary masterpeice and one of the most significant books of the nineteenth century.

Self-described as 'a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher to boot,' Henry David Thoreau dedicated his life to preserving his freedom as a man and as an artist. Nature was the fountainhead of his inspiration and his refuge from what he considered the follies of society. Heedless of his friends' advice to live in a more orthodox manner, he determinedly pursued his own inner bent - that of a poet-philosopher - in prose and verse. Edited by noted Thoreau scholar Jeffrey S. Cramer, this edition promises to be the new standard for those interested in discovering the great thinker's influential ideas about everything from environmentalism to limited government.

Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

Following the overwhelming success of Great Ideas' launch, with a million sold in the UK alone, Penguin now publish a further 20 short, astonishing works of non-fiction drawn from the most remarkable writing of the past two and a half thousand years of human thinking.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was born in Concord, Massachusetts and educated at Harvard. He became a follower and a friend of Emerson, and described himself as a mystic and a transcendentalist. Although he published only two books in his lifetime, Walden (from which this book is taken) is regarded as a literary masterpeice and one of the most significant books of the 19th century.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. 
 
Thoreau's account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement - a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materialistic existences of 'quiet desperation' for a simple life within their means, finding spiritual truth through awareness of the sheer beauty of their surroundings.

Walden

The finest editions available of the world's greatest classics from Homer to Achebe, Tolstoy to Ishiguro, Proust to Pullman, printed on a fine acid-free, cream-wove paper that will not discolour with age, with sewn, full cloth bindings and silk ribbon markers, and at remarkably low prices. All books include substantial introductions by major scholars and contemporary writers, and comparative chronologies of literary and historical context.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian.

In this classic of American literature, Thoreau gives an account of his two years’ experience of the ‘simple life’ in the woods, telling how he sought and found material and spiritual sustenance in the solitude of the cabin which he built for himself on the shore of Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts.

Walden and Civil Disobedience

Disdainful of America&rsquo;s booming commercialism and industrialism, Henry David Thoreau left Concord, Massachusetts, in 1845 to live in solitude in the woods near Walden Pond. Walden, the account of his stay, conveys at once a naturalist&rsquo;s wonder at the commonplace and a Transcendentalist&rsquo;s yearning for spiritual truth and self-reliance. But even as Thoreau disentangled himself from worldly matters, his musings were often disturbed by his social conscience. Civil Disobedience, also included in this volume, expresses his antislavery and antiwar sentiments, and has influenced non-violent resistance movements worldwide. Both give a rewarding insight into a free-minded, principled and idiosyncratic man.

Henry David Thoreau

Like Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Walden is one of those seriously important books I feel I must have read and, if I haven't, I should, because seriously important people - Tolstoy, Marx, Gandhi - said that it changed their lives

A lovely read...Thoreau was ahead of his time, right down to his hipster beard

Walden can be taken as an antidote to apathy and anxiety. With its high spirits and keen appeals to the senses, it fortifies

Walden is really the original alternative manifesto

It is as philosophy, as one of the great self-help books, as a spiritual message, that is Walden at its most powerful

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BENJAMIN MARKOVITS 
 
In 1845 Thoreau, a Harvard-educated 28-year-old, went to live by himself in the woods in Massachusetts. He stayed for over two years, living self-sufficiently in a small cabin built with his own hands. Walden is his personal account of the experience, in which he documents the beauty and fulfilment to be found in the wilderness, and his philosophical and political motivations for rejecting the materialism which continues to define our modern world.

Henry David Thoreau

Praise for Walden

Like Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Walden is one of those seriously important books I feel I must have read and, if I haven't, I should, because seriously important people - ...

A lovely read...Thoreau was ahead of his time, right down to his hipster beard

Walden can be taken as an antidote to apathy and anxiety. With its high spirits and keen appeals to the senses, it fortifies

Like Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Walden is one of those seriously important books I feel I must have read and, if I haven't, I should, because seriously important people - ...

A lovely read...Thoreau was ahead of his time, right down to his hipster beard

Walden can be taken as an antidote to apathy and anxiety. With its high spirits and keen appeals to the senses, it fortifies

Like Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Walden is one of those seriously important books I feel I must have read and, if I haven't, I should, because seriously important people - ...

A lovely read...Thoreau was ahead of his time, right down to his hipster beard

Walden can be taken as an antidote to apathy and anxiety. With its high spirits and keen appeals to the senses, it fortifies

Books by Henry David Thoreau

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The best places to write your novel according to authors: tried and tested

Inspiring bookish quotes perfect for a protest banner

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