Essays of Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau is one of the most widely recognized names in American letters. Born in 1817, he wrote extensively on naturalism, transcendentalism, philosophy, global and American politics, and abolition. He is best known for is the author of Walden, a seminal text on living simply in a natural environment, and Civil Disobedience, an essay arguing for the individual right to resist a morally unjust state. He died in 1862.Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic. A MacArthur Fellow and renowned author, his previous books include The Gift, Trickster Makes This World, and A Primer for Forgetting. Hyde is a trustee of MacDowell and a founding director of Creative Capital. He was previously the director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University and taught writing and American literature for many years at Kenyon College. Now retired, he and his wife, the writer Patricia Vigderman, live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Praise for The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau“Hyde’s volume is a well-chosen, handsome collection of essays with a splendid introduction. Everyone will want to use it—it’s a real contribution.”—Robert D. Richardson, author of Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind“This thoughtfully edited gathering of Thoreau’s essays will surely be of great interest both to Thoreauvians and to readers approaching his work for the first time.”—Lawrence Buell, Harvard University“Astonishing that so many pages of such great writing (and such wonderful, interesting annotations) can be purchased for so little money. We have needed an inexpensive annotated edition of Thoreau’s best short prose for a very long time, and this clearly fits the bill. Teachers and students, in particular, will find this book extraordinarily useful. The Thoreau material and annotations alone are extraordinarily valuable, but Hyde’s excellent introduction on Thoreau’s ‘Prophetic Excursions’ make this the best deal available for a Thoreau book. Buy it; you’ll be glad you did!”—Bradley Dean, editor of Thoreau’s Wild Fruits and Faith in a SeedPraise for Lewis Hyde“Lewis Hyde is a national treasure, one of our true superstars of nonfiction.”—David Foster Wallace“One of our country’s greatest public thinkers.”—Lawrence Weschler