Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) is considered one of America’s most important authors and naturalists. In 1854, he completed Walden; or, Life in the Woods, which became his most important work. Walden is based on Thoreau’s personal experiences at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts, and describes a life devoted to personal development and the pursuit of knowledge of self and nature. Walden’s central message, to live a life dedicated to exploring and enjoying–but also conserving–nature, as opposed to consuming and earning material riches, made him one of the prophets for the American environmental movement.
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Further Readings:
- Cafaro, Philip. Thoreau's Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of Virtue. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2004.
- Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Walden first published 1854 by Ticknor and Fields; "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" first published 1849 as "Resistance to Civil Government; a Lecture delivered in 1847," in Aesthetic Papers, edited by Elizabeth P. Peabody, 189–213. Boston: The Editor, New York: G. P. Putnam. E-book
- Walls, Laura D. Seeing New Worlds: Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Natural Science. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
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1854