Henry D. Thoreau, geb. 12. Juli 1817 in Concord/Massachusetts, gest. 6. Mai 1862 ebd. und begraben dort im Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sohn eines Bleistiftfabrikanten hugenottischer Abstammung, Literat, Naturforscher, Landvermesser, war ein Entdecker, der zu Hause blieb, sein Ich erforschte und das Heimatstädtchen nie länger als für ein 4jähriges Studium in Harvard verließ. Quittiert seine Lehrerstelle, weil er sich weigert, die 'körperliche Züchtigung' anzuwenden; Freundschaft mit Ralph Waldo Emerson, auf dessen Waldstück am Waldensee er 1845 in einer selbstgebauten Hütte lebt; aus dem Tagebuch entsteht 'Walden'. Auf dem Weg ins Städtchen wird er verhaftet, weil er aus Protest gegen die US-Kriegs- und Sklavenpolitik keine Steuern bezahlt hat; konzipiert im Gefängnis 'Über die Pflicht zum Ungehorsam gegen den Staat'. Tod an Tuberkulose.

This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition reprints the texts of Walden, Civil Disobedience, Slavery in Massachusetts, Walking, and Wild Apples. All are annotated for student readers. Also included are related selections from Thoreau's Journal.

Table of Contents:
- Preface
- A Note on the Texts
- The Texts of Walden, Civil Disobedience, and Other Writings
- Journal
- Reviews and Posthumous Assessments
- Modern Criticism
- A Chronology
- Selected Bibliography

As a unique feature, the Third Edition includes generous excerpts from Thoreau's journal, reprinted by special arrangements with Princeton University Press from the definitive edition of his writings. Spanning the years 1845-54, these selections vividly display Thoreau's intensive exploration of his local landscape; the fusion of literary and natural history field work that informs Walden, "Walking," and "Wild Apples"; and the growth of his environmental imagination."Reviews and Posthumous Assessments" for this edition collects eight new reviews of Thoreau's antislavery and late environmental essays as well as of Walden. To the influential portraits of Thoreau by Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell, the Third Edition adds John Burroughs's "Another Word on Thoreau," his response to them and to his great predecessor."Recent Criticism" includes eighteen selections of the best historical, political, philosophical, poststructuralist, and environmental criticism of Thoreau's writing since the mid-twentieth century. To classic pieces by E. B. White, Leo Marx, Barbara Johnson, and Stanley Cavell, the Third Edition adds essays by nine new contributors, among them Laurence Buell, Laura Dassow Walls, Evan Carton, Robert A. Gross, Albert J. von Frank, Steven Fink, and William Rossi.A Chronology of Thoreau's life and work, new to the Third Edition, and an expanded and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.