Walden

Walden, series of 18 essays by Henry David Thoreau, published in 1854. An important contribution to New England Transcendentalism, the book was a record of Thoreau’s experiment in simple living on the northern shore of Walden Pond in eastern Massachusetts (1845–47). Walden is viewed not only as a philosophical treatise on labour, leisure, self-reliance, and individualism but also as an influential piece of nature writing. It is considered Thoreau’s masterwork.

Walden is the product of the two years and two months Thoreau lived in semi-isolation by Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. He built a small cabin on land owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson and was almost totally self-sufficient, growing his own vegetables and doing odd jobs. It was his intention at Walden Pond to live simply and have time to contemplate, walk in the woods, write, and commune with nature. As he explained, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.” The resulting book is a series of essays, or meditations, beginning with “Economy,” in which he discussed his experiment and included a detailed account of the construction (and cost) of his cabin. Thoreau extolled the benefits of literature in “Reading,” though in the following essay, “Sounds,” he noted the limits of books and implored the reader to live mindfully, “being forever on the alert” to the sounds and sights in his or her own life. “Solitude” praised the friendliness of nature, which made the “fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant.” Later essays included “Visitors,” “Higher Laws,” “Winter Animals,” and “Spring.”

Relatively neglected during Thoreau’s lifetime, Walden achieved tremendous popularity in the 20th century. Thoreau’s description of the physical act of living day by day at Walden Pond gave the book authority, while his command of a clear, straightforward, but elegant style helped raise it to the level of a literary classic. Oft-repeated quotes from Walden include: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”; “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes”; and “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”