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 landcscape. In this new biography, based on a rexamination 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 ninteeth-century context.
"A splendidly written book [...] Richardson's critical discussions of the journals [...] and the other works are invariably illuminating and cast a new light on Thoreau's sometimes cross-grained but fascinating personality."
– The Boston Globe