Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

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Introduction

"Henry David Thoreau." Introduction to Thoreau, from the college textbook publisher the Heath Anthology of American Literature.

Updike, John. "A sage for all seasons." The (UK) Guardian, 26 June 2004.

Henry David Thoreau Papers. In addition to being a writer, lecturer, and naturalist, Thoreau was at times a surveyor. The Concord Public Library has digitized Thoreau's land surveys (including one of Bronson Alcott's property).

Biography

Dowling, David. "Commercial Method and Thoreau's Economy of Subsistence Writing." The Concord Saunterer, New Series, 16 (2008) pp. 84-102 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].

Scharnhorst, Gary. "Kate Field on Thoreau." Kate Field (the likely model for Henry James's Henrietta Stackpole) was an early enthusiast for Thoreau and his causes. The Concord Saunterer, New Series, 9 (2001) pp. 140-45 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].

Wilson, Leslie Perrin; and Robert N. Hudspeth. "Reconstructing Thoreau's World." On the earliest sources of biographical material on Thoreau, including Ellery Channing, Alfred Winslow Hosmer, and Edward Waldo Emerson, and the growth of interest in Thoreau and his Concord landscape in the twentieth century. The Thoreau Society Bulletin, 259 (Summer 2007) pp. 1-3 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].

Literary Criticism

Bryson, J. Scott. "Seeing the West Side of Any Mountain: Thoreau and Contemporary Ecological Poetry," from Thoreau's Sense of Place: Essays in American Environmental Writing (1999).

Buell, Laurence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Harvard UP, 1995. Preview at Google Books.

Marx, Steven. "The Struggle Over Thoreau." NY Review of Books 24 June 1999 [first page only]. Also Buell, Laurence. In response to "The Struggle Over Thoreau." With a further reply by Leo Marx. NY Review of Books, 2 Dec., 1999. A debate between two important literary critics about the environmental movement and literature.

Marx, Steven. A review of Laurence Buell's The Environmental Imagination (Harvard UP 1995).

McKenzie, Jonathan. "How To Mind Your Own Business: Thoreau on Political Indifference." On the inconsistency in Thoreau's body of political writings. The New England Quarterly, 84, 3 (Sept. 2011) pp. 422-43 [free].

St. Jean, Shawn. "Thoreau's Radical Consistency." On the consistency in Thoreau's body of political writings. The Massachusetts Review, 39, 3 (Autumn 1998) pp. 341-57 [free at jstor, click "Preview" or "Read Online"].

Web Sites

"Henry David Thoreau." Ed. Wendell P. Glick. A guide for teaching Thoreau. From educational publisher Heath.

The American Transcendentalism Web. Ed. Ann Woodlief. Covers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, Amos Bronson Alcott, Jones Very, William Ellery Channing, Christopher Cranch, Orestes Brownson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody; contains articles about the roots of American Transcendentalism and its legacy; reprints important essays; has books reviews, recommended links, and more.

"The Thoreau Reader," ed. Richard Lenat. Access to many brief essays on Thoreau, some by scholars, others lighter in nature and geared towards high school students.

ATQ, American Transcendental Quarterly Ed. Josie P. Campbell. The journal folded in 2008 for lack of funds.

"The Walden Woods Project." Dedicated to conservation, education, and research.

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