Henry David Thoreau "came to live" at Walden Pond on July 4, 1845. New commemorative editions of Walden celebrate the 150th anniversary of Thoreau's life on its shore.
Walden : Or, Life in the Woods (Boston : Shambhala Publications, Inc., 2004)
"This special 150th anniversary edition...features exquisite wood engravings by Michael McCurdy, one of America's leading engravers and woodblock artists. McCurdy's engravings bring the text to life -- and illuminate the spirit of Thoreau's prose."
Walden : 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic (New York : Houghton Mifflin, 2004)
"The new edition features spectacular color photographs by Scot Miller that capture Walden as vividly as Thoreau's words do. The book is being published in association with the Walden Woods Project, which is dedicated to preserving the lands Thoreau wrote about. For each copy sold, Houghton Mifflin and Scot Miller are making a donation to the Walden Woods Project."
Walden : a Fully Annotated Edition (Jeffrey S. Cramer, editor. New Haven : Yale University Press, 2004)
"This edition of Walden is the first to set forth an authoritative text with generous annotations. Thoreau scholar Jeffrey S. Cramer meticulously corrected errors and omissions from previous editions of Walden and here provides illuminating notes on the biographical, historical, and geographical contexts of Thoreau's life."
Walden (150th Anniversary Edition) (J. Lyndon Shanley, editor. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2004)
"This new paperback edition -- introduced by noted American writer John Updike -- celebrates the 150th anniversary of this classic work... This is the complete and authoritative text of Walden -- as close to Thoreau's original intention as all available evidence allows."
Thoreau left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847. Walden was first published on August 9, 1854.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. -- Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Related Websites
Walden Pond State Reservation
http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/northeast/wldn.htm
The Walden Woods Project
http://www.walden.org/About/index.htm
The Thoreau Society
http://www.aa.psu.edu/thoreau/
The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not long frequented it or lived by its shore; yet this pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity as to merit a particular description. It is a clear and deep green well, half a mile long and a mile and three quarters in circumference, and contains about sixty-one and a half acres; a perennial spring in the midst of pine and oak woods, without any visible inlet or outlet except by the clouds and evaporation. The surrounding hills rise abruptly from the water to the height of forty to eighty feet, though on the south-east and east they attain to about one hundred and one hundred fifty feet respectively, within a quarter of a mile and a third of a mile. They are exclusively woodland. -- Henry David Thoreau, Walden
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