Description: The two years Thoreau spent at Walden Pond and the night he spent in the Concord jail are among the most familiar features of the American intellectual landscape. In this new biography, based on a reexamination of Thoreau's manuscripts and on a retracing of his trips, Robert Richardson offers a view of Thoreau's life and achievement in their full nineteenth century context.
Review Quotes: "A splendidly written book. . . . Richardson's critical discussions of the journals, Walden, Cape Cod, and the other works are invariably illuminating and cast a new light on Thoreau's sometimes cross-grained but fascinating personality. . . . The arc of Thoreau's progress is more absorbing than any thriller .... This is a splendidly written book, handsomely designed and illustrated by Barry Moser and worthy of a place on the bookshelf near Walden."-- "Boston Globe"