Leading transcendentalist. Abolitionist, naturalist, ecology, environmentalism, tax resister, development critic, civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance, conscientious objection, direct action, simple living.

Literary style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and "Yankee" love of practical detail.

Idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs.

Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts. He was a complex man of many talents who worked hard to shape his craft and his life, seeing little difference between them. One of his first memories was of staying awake at night "looking through the stars to see if I could see God behind them." One might say he never stopped looking into nature for ultimate Truth. 

Henry grew up very close to his older brother John, who taught school to help pay for Henry`s tuition at Harvard. He and his brother taught school for a while but in 1842, John cut himself while shaving and died of lockjaw in his brother`s arms, an untimely death which traumatized the 25 year old Henry. 

He worked for several years as a surveyor and making pencils with his father, but at the age of 28 in 1845, wanting to write his first book, he went to Walden pond and built his cabin on land owned by Emerson. While at Walden, Thoreau did an incredible amount of reading and writing, yet he also spent much time wandering in nature and absorbing it. He gave a lecture and was imprisoned briefly for not paying his poll tax, but mostly he wrote a book as a memorial to a river trip he had taken with his brother, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. He returned to Concorde after two years with his book Walden but not many showed an interest in it, so he spent 9 years and wrote seven full drafts before trying to publish it.

He traveled often, to the Maine woods and to Cape Cod several times, and was particularly interested in the frontier and Indians. He opposed the government for waging the Mexican war  eloquently in Resistance to Civil Government based on his brief experience in jail; he even supported John Brown`s violent effort to end slavery. 

Thoreau died of tuberculosis in 1862, at the age of 45 leaving not only two books and numerous essays, but also a huge Journal, published later in 20 volumes.

Ann Woodlief