Pſymon

☙ Books ❧

Various versions
(see individual volumes, below)

This 4-volume series was truly a labour of love for me, in light of the fact that Henry David Thoreau’s life and writings — in particular his famed and acclaimed 1854 book Walden; Or, Life in the Woods — were truly the impetus and inspiration for virtually every path I chose to embark on in life. As such, extraordinary care and painstaking effort has gone into this series of his best works, with each dutifully compared page-by-page, virtually line-by-line with original sources. While nowhere near as definitive or authorative as Princeton University’s truly monumental effort, The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau (which I absolutely recommend as being by far the best print versions available), only naturally copyright restrictions prevent using their materials as sources.

However, other somewhat “authoratative” editions have been published over the years, notably the 20-volume series The Writings of Henry David Thoreau published by Houghton Mifflin in 1906, along with various other reasonably-accurate editions. If one is striving for perfection, then do stick with the aforementioned Princeton series, but it should be noted that even the very first editions “authorized” by Thoreau himself were chock-full of errors which he would make endless corrections to.

With that said, I did strive for my very best with my own series of his works here, and I’m also profoundly grateful and eternally indebted to my dear friend and Thoreauvian colleague, Ann Woodlief, professor emeritus of Virginia Commonwealth University, who lectured on Thoreau and his writings, as well as his many compatriots within the American Transcendentalism movement for virtually her entire tenure there.

On this page you will find the following four volumes in this series of ebooks...

• Walden and Beyond: An Anthology
• A Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers
• The Maine Woods
• Cape Cod

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Walden and Beyond:
An Anthology

Thoreau’s Walden is surely one of the most preeminent works of American literature, relating his real-life “experiment” of living a life of both simplicity and solitude at his cabin by Walden Pond (near Concord, Massachusetts) for two years, from 1845 to 1847. Filled with practical details of how he went about his time there, the work certainly goes far beyond that as a forum for his philosophical musings on society and culture, his love for nature, classical literature and countless other subjects, and is by many considered to be the “Bible” of what came to be known as the American Transcendentalism movement.

This anthology includes Walden in its entirety, along with selections from his other major books (“complete” versions of which are also available in this same series of ebooks), plus the bulk of his major published essays. In addition to Thoreau’s own writings are also included biographical essays about him, analyses and criticisms of his ideas and writings, plus an entire section about the other major authors within the American Transcendentalism movement (i.e. Emerson, Alcott, Channing, et al.), not only for further reading for those interested, but also to help provide greater context and understanding for the time and place in which Thoreau lived.

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Please note that this volume is HUGE!

Click here to view the table of contents

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