In the early spring of 1845, Henry David Thoreau built and lived in a cabin near the shore of Walden Pond in rural Massachusetts. For the next two years, he enacted his own Transcendentalist experiment, living a simple life based on self-reliance, individualism, and harmony with nature. The journal he kept at that time evolved into his masterwork, Walden, an eloquent expression of a uniquely American philosophy.

Walden

Walden by Henry David Thoreau is one of the best-known non-fiction books written by an American. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau’s life for two years, two months, and two days around the shores of Walden Pond. Walden is neither a novel nor a true autobiography, but a social critique of the Western World, with each chapter heralding some aspect of humanity that needed to be either renounced or praised.

Thoreau's Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of Virtue

Thoreau’s Living Ethics is the first full, rigorous account of Henry Thoreau’s ethical philosophy. Focused on Walden but ranging widely across his writings, the study situates Thoreau within a long tradition of ethical thinking in the West, from the ancients to the romantics and on to the present day. Philip Cafaro shows Thoreau grappling with important ethical questions that agitated his own society and discusses his value for those seeking to understand contemporary ethical issues.

This new paperback edition--introduced by noted American writer John Updike--celebrates the 150th anniversary of this classic work. Much of Walden's material is derived from Thoreau's journals and contains such engaging pieces as "Reading" and "The Pond in the Winter." Other famous sections involve Thoreau's visits with a Canadian woodcutter and with an Irish family, a trip to Concord, and a description of his bean field.

The Main Woods and Walden by Henry David Thoreau

The Main Woods was written as three essays. If he had lived longer, Thoreau might have revised them into a more cohesive whole, but he never had the time to do this. The book describes trips over an eleven year period, and Thoreau's work on these essays spanned 15 years. Walden is an American classic. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, and manual for self reliance.