Waubonsee Community College

The adventures of Henry Thoreau, a young man's unlikely path to Walden Pond, by Michael Sims

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 351-360) and index

individual biography

index present

non fiction

The adventures of Henry Thoreau

bibliography

854980518

by Michael Sims

a young man's unlikely path to Walden Pond

In this profile, Michael Sims reveals how the bookish, quirky young man who kept quitting jobs evolved into an inspiration for environmentalism and nonviolent activism. Working from nineteenth-century letters and diaries by Thoreau's family, friends, and students, Sims charts Henry's course from his time at Harvard through the years he spent living in a cabin beside Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Sims uncovers a previously hidden Thoreau -- the rowdy boy reminiscent of Tom Sawyer, the sarcastic college iconoclast, the devoted son who kept imitating his beloved older brother's choices in life. Thoreau was deeply influenced by his parents -- his father owned a pencil factory in Concord, his mother was an abolitionist and social activist -- and by Ralph Waldo Emerson, his frequent mentor. Sims relates intimate, telling moments in Thoreau's daily life -- in Emerson's library; teaching his neighbor and friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to row a boat; exploring the natural world and Native American culture; tutoring Emerson's nephew on Staten Island and walking the streets of New York in the hope of launching a writing career. Returned from New York, Thoreau approached Emerson to ask if he could build a cabin on his mentor's land on the shores of Walden Pond, anticipating the isolation would galvanize his thoughts and actions. While at the cabin, he wrote his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, and refined the journal entries that formed the core of Walden. Resisting what he felt were unfair taxes, he spent the night in jail that led to his celebrated essay "Civil Disobedience," which would inspire the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Chronicling Thoreau's youthful transformation, Sims reveals how this decade would resonate over the rest of his life

Overture: Dancing on the ice -- Behind the stars -- Seek your fortune -- More beautiful than useful -- Meadow River -- The new schoolmaster -- Savage brothers -- God and nature face to face -- How comic is simplicity -- We can teach you -- No remedy for love -- Give her a kiss for me -- My friend's little brother -- Log cabins and cider -- Melodies and inventions -- Near to the world of spirits -- Hawthorne's new boat -- A skating party -- Staten Island -- Fire -- A poor man's house -- Favored by the gods -- Death on the river -- Living fireworks -- Luncheon at the cabin -- My muse, my brother -- A night in jail -- Chaos and ancient night -- Coda: After the cabin