Henry David Thoreau - The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau

Thoreaus major essays annotated and introduced by one of our most vital intellectuals.

With The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau, Lewis Hyde gathers thirteen of Thoreaus finest short prose works and, for the first time in 150 years, presents them fully annotated and arranged in the order of their composition. This definitive edition includes Thoreaus most famous essays, Civil Disobedience and Walking, along with lesser-known masterpieces such as Wild Apples, The Last Days of John Brown, and an account of his 1846 journey into the Maine wilderness to climb Mount Katahdin, an essay that ends on a unique note of sublimity and terror.

Hyde diverges from the long-standing and dubious editorial custom of separating Thoreaus politics from his interest in nature, a division that has always obscured the ways in which the two are constantly entwined. Natural History of Massachusetts begins not with fish and birds but with a dismissal of the political world, and Slavery in Massachusetts ends with a meditation on the water lilies blooming on the Concord River.

Thoreaus ideal reader was expected to be well versed in Greek and Latin, poetry and travel narrative, and politically engaged in current affairs. Hydes detailed annotations clarify many of Thoreaus references and re-create the contemporary context wherein the nations westward expansion was bringing to a head the racial tensions that would result in the Civil War.