Henry David Thoreau
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Chapter 7: People Alone Henry David Thoreau |
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Henry David Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, into a middle-class family whose income was derived from the manufacture of pencils. Thoreau was educated at Harvard College, and briefly taught school, worked as a handyman, and served as a private tutor. In later life, he worked as a surveyor, but his true avocation and talent was as a writer. His first published text, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack (1849), showed him to be an accomplished naturalist. He contributed to The Dial, a literary magazine edited by his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson and later by Margaret Fuller Ossoli. From 1845 through 1847, Thoreau lived on the shore of Walden Pond in a hut that he built for himself. His depiction of this experience was published in 1854 as Walden, or a Life in the Woods. It was unsuccessful and sold few copies. During his lifetime, Thoreau was know for two essays – "Civil Disobedience" (1849), which explains his belief in passive resistance to laws and policies he considered unjust and/or immoral and "Life Without Principle" (1863), which stresses his belief in moral law and the strength of the individual. He was also a prominent opponent of slavery. His political and moral views influenced a great variety of people, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Author Links
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"Solitude"
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