Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau’s report on his social experiment of solitude, simplicity, and self-reliance.
18 chapters · 106,376 words · about 8 hours
Contents
About this book
Walden is one of the more famous transcendentalist tracts in modern American literature. First published in 1854, Walden is an account of Thoreau’s famous experiment in solitude: spending over two years alone in a cabin near the wilderness.
Walden is broken into sections that meditate on single themes: economy, reading, sounds, solitude, visitors, and so on. The style is complex, weaving back and forth between simple, home-spun prose and complex allegory, metaphor, and allusion. This makes Walden an interesting read because while it may seem accessible on the surface, it’s a book that requires deep and repeated reading to fully appreciate its many complexities.
About this edition
This edition comes from Standard Ebooks, whose volunteers carefully proofread public-domain books and give their own work to the public domain too. The book is in the public domain in the US, and wherever copyright ends 70 years after its author’s death, so you’re free to read, copy and share it.
The cover is adapted from Mill in the Forest, a painting completed in 1897 by Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin.