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by: Henry David Thoreau, Henry D. Thoreau
List Price: $16.00Amazon.com's Price: $10.88 You Save: $5.12 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.3
EAN: 9780865476462
ISBN: 0865476462
Label: North Point Press
Manufacturer: North Point Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: May 05, 2002
Publisher: North Point Press
Sales Rank: 481703
Studio: North Point Press
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Thoreau's major essays annotated and introduced by one of our most vital intellectuals.
With The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau, Lewis Hyde gathers thirteen of Thoreau's 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 Thoreau's 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 Thoreau's 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.
Thoreau's ideal reader was expected to be well versed in Greek and Latin, poetry and travel narrative, and politically engaged in current affairs. Hyde's detailed annotations clarify many of Thoreau's references and re-create the contemporary context wherein the nation's westward expansion was bringing to a head the racial tensions that would result in the Civil War.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - A nice compilation for the casual Thoreau reader
When Professor Hyde set out to use selected Thoreau essays in his seminar at Kenyon College, he found no book that contained the writings he wanted. So he created one that did. The result is this handsome book, made up of 13 political and / or nature essays: Natural History of Massachusetts ~ A Winter Walk ~ Paradise (to be) Regained ~ Ktaadn ~ Civil Disobedience ~ Walking ~ Slavery in Massachusetts ~ Life Without Principle ~ Autumnal Tints ~ The Succession of Forest Trees ~ A Plea for Captain ... Read More
Rating: - The best reading copy of Thoreau's short prose
Astonishing that so many pages of such great writing (and such wonderful, interesting annotations) can be purchased for so little money. We have needed an inexpensive annotated edition of Thoreau's best short prose for a very long time, and this clearly fits the bill. Teachers and students, in particular, will find this book extraordinarily useful. The Thoreau material and annotations alone are extraordinarily valuable, but Hyde's excellent introduction on Thoreau's "Prophetic Excursions" make ... Read More
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