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This set of timeless essays from the quintessential American shares his valuable philosophies on nature, solitude, slavery, religion, politics, fulfilling work, civil responsibilities, and more. WALDEN, Thoreau’s beloved and well-known reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, looks at how the outside world can benefit from renouncing a materialistic way of life. “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” —Thoreau “If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.” —Thoreau His other essays deal with the social problems of his time: CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE applies principles of individualism to civil life, culminating in a call for a life that answers to a power outside of and unaffected by the state. LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE offers his program for a righteous livelihood through ten “commandments.” SLAVERY IN MASSACHUSETTS is based on a speech he gave at an antislavery rally after the reenslavement of fugitive slave Anthony Burns and relates that freedom could not exist while slavery remained. PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JAMES BROWN portrays his kinship to Brown’s abolitionist efforts and anger toward the injustice Brown received. “Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practise in himself. . . . He went to gaol for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable.” —Mohandas Gandhi “. . . when, in the mid-1950s, the United States Information Service included as a standard book in all their libraries around the world a textbook . . . which reprinted Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience,’ the late Senator Joseph McCarthy succeeded in having that book removed from the shelves—specifically because of the Thoreau essay.” —Walter Harding, in The Variorum Civil Disobedience «I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest.» – Martin Luther King, Jr., Autobiography

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Posthumously published in 1864, The Maine Woods depicts Henry David Thoreau’s experiences in the forests of Maine, and expands on the author’s transcendental theories on the relation of humanity to Nature. On Mount Katahdin, he faces a primal, untamed Nature. Katahdin is a place “not even scarred by man, but it was a specimen of what God saw fit to make this world.” In Maine he comes in contact with “rocks, trees, wind and solid earth” as though he were witness to the creation itself. Of equal importance, The Maine Woods depicts Thoreau’s contact with the American Indians and depicts his tribal education of learning the language, customs, and mores of the Penobscot people. Thoreau attempts to learn and speak the Abenaki language and becomes fascinated with its direct translation of natural phenomena as in the word sebamook—a river estuary that never loses its water despite having an outlet because it also has an inlet. The Maine Woods illustrates the author’s deeper understanding of the complexities of the primal wilderness of uplifted rocky summits in Maine and provides the reader with the pungent aroma of balsam firs, black spruce, mosses, and ferns as only Thoreau could. This new, redesigned edition features an insightful foreword by Thoreau scholar Richard F. Fleck.

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'Civil Disobedience' argues that citizens should not permit their government to overrule their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing their acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War, but the sentiments he expresses here are just as pertinent today as when they were first written. A true American classic.

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This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works or all the significant works – the Œuvre – of this famous and brilliant writer in one ebook – easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate: • Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Walking • The Oxford Book of American Essays • Walden • Cape Cod • The Maine Woods • Canoeing in the wilderness • A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Excursions • Wild Apples • A Plea for Captain John Brown • Excursions and Poems • The Writings of, Volume VI, Familiar Letters • A YANKEE IN CANADA • CONCORD TO MONTREAL • QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI • ST. ANNE • THE WALLS OF QUEBEC • THE SCENERY OF QUEBEC; AND THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE • NATURAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS • A WALK TO WACHUSETT • THE LANDLORD • A WINTER WALK • THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES • WALKING • AUTUMNAL TINTS • WILD APPLES • NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT • POEMS • NATURE • THE AURORA OF GUIDO • TO THE MAIDEN IN THE EAST • TO MY BROTHER • GREECE • THE FUNERAL BELL • THE MOON • THE FALL OF THE LEAF • THE THAW • A WINTER SCENE • TO A STRAY FOWL • POVERTY • PILGRIMS • THE DEPARTURE • INDEPENDENCE • DING DONG • OMNIPRESENCE • INSPIRATION (QUATRAIN) • MISSION • etc.

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WALDEN or, Life in the Woods , by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. First published in 1854, it details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. The book compresses the time into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development. By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period. As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, about two miles (3 km) from his family home. (more on: www.wisehouse-classics.com)

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libreka classics – These are classics of literary history, reissued and made available to a wide audience. Immerse yourself in well-known and popular titles!

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