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Walden: Thoreau's Masterwork on Simple Living

Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden in 1854 after living for two years in a small cabin he built near Walden Pond in Massachusetts. The book describes his experiment in simple living and includes philosophical essays on topics like labor, leisure, self-reliance, and individualism. It details Thoreau's daily life living self-sufficiently in nature and communing with the natural world. Though initially neglected, Walden became a seminal work of American literature in the 20th century for its advocacy of living simply and deliberately.

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383 views2 pages

Walden: Thoreau's Masterwork on Simple Living

Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden in 1854 after living for two years in a small cabin he built near Walden Pond in Massachusetts. The book describes his experiment in simple living and includes philosophical essays on topics like labor, leisure, self-reliance, and individualism. It details Thoreau's daily life living self-sufficiently in nature and communing with the natural world. Though initially neglected, Walden became a seminal work of American literature in the 20th century for its advocacy of living simply and deliberately.

Uploaded by

David Jess Ling-oy
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Walden, in full 

Walden; or, Life in the Woods, series of 18 essays


by Henry David Thoreau, published in 1854. An important
contribution to New England Transcendentalism, the book was a
record of Thoreau’s experiment in simple living on the northern shore
of Walden Pond in eastern Massachusetts (1845–47). Walden is
viewed not only as a philosophical treatise on labour, leisure, self-
reliance, and individualism but also as an influential piece of nature
writing. It is considered Thoreau’s masterwork.
Walden is the product of the two years and two months Thoreau lived
in semi-isolation by Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. He
built a small cabin on land owned by his friend Ralph Waldo
Emerson and was almost totally self-sufficient, growing his own
vegetables and doing odd jobs. It was his intention at Walden Pond to
live simply and have time to contemplate, walk in the woods, write,
and commune with nature. As he explained, “I went to the woods
because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of
life.” The resulting book is a series of essays, or meditations, beginning
with “Economy,” in which he discussed his experiment and included a
detailed account of the construction (and cost) of his cabin. Thoreau
extolled the benefits of literature in “Reading,” though in the
following essay, “Sounds,” he noted the limits of books and implored
the reader to live mindfully, “being forever on the alert” to the sounds
and sights in his or her own life. “Solitude” praised the friendliness of
nature, which made the “fancied advantages of human neighborhood
insignificant.” Later essays included “Visitors,” “Higher Laws,”
“Winter Animals,” and “Spring.”

Relatively neglected during Thoreau’s lifetime, Walden achieved


tremendous popularity in the 20th century. Thoreau’s description of
the physical act of living day by day at Walden Pond gave the book
authority, while his command of a clear, straightforward, but elegant
style helped raise it to the level of a literary classic. Oft-repeated
quotes from Walden include: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet
desperation”; “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes”; and
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is
because he hears a different drummer.”

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