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(1817-1862)
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American Author
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The first hippie
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Concord, Massachusetts, was both the birthplace and
the center of the life of this Harvard University
graduate. The father of this famous writer
was... a pencils manufacturer. In 1835 Thoreau
contracted tuberculosis and suffered from it all his life,
and eventually died at Concord of
tuberculosis. Thoreau's wit is to encourage
disobediance to unjust laws. Father of the passive
resistance philosophy, he later inspired Mahatma Gandhi and
Martin Luther King, Jr.. Why did Thoreau
lived this life of hermit ? : "I went to the
woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only
the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn
what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover
that I had not lived."
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How individuals should break conformism and prejudice in
the search of truth, is one of the important leitmotivs of
his writings.
In Wild Fruits, a manuscript
which surfaced only in 1999, Thoreau opposes strongly
against the destruction of the wilderness around him.
His fascination for Nature is reflected in many
of his works.
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If you wish further information about this author, please enter
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Thoreau is best-known for his autobiographical story Walden (1854)
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An extract of his introduction, called "Economy":
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" When I wrote the following pages, or rather the
bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any
neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the
shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and
earned my living by the labor of my hands only. "
Civil Desobedience (1849),Thoreau's most famous essay,
was written after a short imprisonment in 1846.
Concord was also the place where Nathaniel Hawthorne settled with
his wife in 1842.
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
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