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Walden
- Henry David Thoreau
Walden
- first published as Walden; or Life in the Woods
- is considered to be one of the best-known non-fiction
books written by an American. Published in 1854, it
details Thoreau's sojourn in a cabin near Walden Pond,
amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph
Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.
Thoreau
hoped to isolate himself from society in order to gain
a more objective understanding of it. Simple living
and self-sufficiency were his other goals, and the whole
project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy,
which was one of the key ideas of the American Romantic
Period. As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin
was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, not far
from his family home.
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Henry David Thoreau (born
David Henry Thoreau; 1817 – 1862) was an American author,
poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor,
historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is
best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living
in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience,
an argument for individual resistance to civil government in
moral opposition to an unjust state.
Thoreau
first contracted tuberculosis in 1835 and suffered from it
sporadically over his lifetime. In 1859, following a late
night excursion to count the rings of tree stumps during a
rain storm, he became ill with bronchitis.
His health declined over three years with brief periods of
remission, until he eventually became bedridden. When his
aunt Louisa asked him in his last weeks if he had made his
peace with God, Thoreau responded: "I did not know we
had ever quarreled."
Aware
he was dying, Thoreau's last words were "Now comes good
sailing", followed by two lone words, "moose"
and "Indian". He died at age 44.
Source
- Wikipedia
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