The Maine Woods

In 1846, Thoreau took the first of his three journeys into the woods of Maine, and each of his excursions, he pondered the allure of the wild, the impact of humanity, and on being a man moving through nature. Here, his thoughts on all three trips are gathering in one volume-first published in 1864-that is considered by some one of the best examples of outdoors writing ever. From the quiet of a lakeside to the campfire stewing of cranberries to surprising encounters with Indians, Thoreau offers us an intimate look at a landscape that is now all but gone, or radically different. His insights on his experiences, which have made him a hero to environmentalists and ecologists, are even more powerful today than perhaps they were when he first put them down on paper. Writer and philosopher HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862) was born in Concord, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard University. His writings on human nature, materialism, and the natural world rank him among the most influential thinkers of American literature.