As an essayist, philosopher, ex-pencil manufacturer, notorious hermit, tax protester, and all-around original thinker, Thoreau led so singular a life that he is in some ways a perfect candidate for the historical and biographical treatments made possible by the Historical Guides to American Authors series format. William E. Cain, the volume editor, includes contributions on his relationship with 19th century authority and concepts of the land, which should help the volume's reach beyond those who read Thoreau for illumination to those general readers who love him for embodying the spirit of American rebellion.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
William E. Cain is Mary Jewitt Gaiser Professor of English at Wellesley College.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some nice essays, but title is misleading,
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This review is from: A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau (Historical Guides to American Authors) (Paperback)
There are some very good essays on a range of topics related to Thoreau in this collection, but as a whole it doesn't really live up to the expectation that I had based on its title. I bought this expecting that it was a guide to the historical background of Thoreau's writing and thinking. What it turned out to be was a small collection of historical essays on Thoreau, that don't seem to have been chosen with any clear aim towards comprehension of coverage. I found some of the essays to be quite good, but most of them were fairly narrowly specialized -- when I expected something more general that would appeal to and have relevance for anyone with interest in Thoreau the man and writer.There is a brief biography of Thoreau, that would be quite valuable as a short introduction for someone who hadn't read any of the other more comprehensive biographies. I didn't find anything there, though, that added to or offered a new perspective on the approaches of some of the standard longer bios of Thoreau. This essay and a very worthwhile chronology of significant events in Thoreau's lifetime are the elements that most closely match what I was expecting from this book. Beyond that, there are essays on Thoreau's conception of "manhood," on his critique of domesticity and how it relates to similar critiques that had been offered by his proto-feminist contemporaries, on his attempt to inscribe "the real" into his writing, on the background of his "civil disobedience," and on the reactions of his contemporaries to Thoreau the Hermit. I learned something from each of the essays, but I'm not sure I would have sought them out individually and, with the possible exception of the hermit essay by Robert Gross, don't think I got anything that will significantly alter my overall thinking about Thoreau at this point. I don't know the genesis of this collection but it feels more like the editor asked a group of Thoreau scholars to write about whatever historical topic they happened to be working on in connection with Thoreau, rather than thinking carefully about what set of topics would together deliver an overall guide to the period and place and background of Thoreau's thought. The effect is that the volume as a whole feels more like an eclectic set of essays on Thoreauvian topics than a "historical guide."
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First Sentence:
Thoreau was born on his maternal grandmother's farm, on Virginia Road, in Concord, Massachusetts, on July 12, 1817, the third child of John and Cynthia (Dunbar) Thoreau. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
page numbers for subsequent quotations, illustrated chronology, pencil business, capitalist citizenship, tax refusal, tax resistance, frugal housewife Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, New England, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Thoreau, Walden Pond, United States, Brief Biography, John Thoreau, Princeton University Press, John Brown, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mexican War, Civil Government, Houghton Mifflin, Reform Papers, Edward Jarvis, Farmer James, Thoreau's Technology of Inscription, Atlantic Monthly, Ezra Ripley, Civil War, Harvard University Press, Horace Hosmer, New Hampshire, New Haven New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Thoreau was born on his maternal grandmother's farm, on Virginia Road, in Concord, Massachusetts, on July 12, 1817, the third child of John and Cynthia (Dunbar) Thoreau. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
page numbers for subsequent quotations, illustrated chronology, pencil business, capitalist citizenship, tax refusal, tax resistance, frugal housewife Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, New England, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Thoreau, Walden Pond, United States, Brief Biography, John Thoreau, Princeton University Press, John Brown, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mexican War, Civil Government, Houghton Mifflin, Reform Papers, Edward Jarvis, Farmer James, Thoreau's Technology of Inscription, Atlantic Monthly, Ezra Ripley, Civil War, Harvard University Press, Horace Hosmer, New Hampshire, New Haven New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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9
books
cite this book:
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- Civil Disobedience and Other Essays (Dover Thrift Editions) by Henry David Thoreau on 14 pages
- A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers by Henry David Thoreau on 11 pages
- A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Henry D. Thoreau on 11 pages
- A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (Dover Thrift Editions) by Henry David Thoreau on 11 pages
- The Days of Henry Thoreau by Walter Harding on 6 pages
See all 100 books this book cites
- George Orwell: Into the Twenty-First Century by John Rodden on page 125, and Back Matter
- Irving Howe and the Critics: Celebrations and Attacks by John Rodden on page 132
- The Minutemen and Their World (American Century) by Robert A. Gross in Back Matter
- Natural Life: Thoreau's Worldly Transcendentalism by David Robinson in Back Matter
- The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde by Henry David Thoreau in Back Matter
See all 9 books citing this book
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