A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers: American Classics - Softcover

Thoreau, Henry D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1545254486 ISBN 13: 9781545254486

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017

Synopsis

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) is a book by Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862). It is ostensibly the narrative of a boat trip from Concord, Massachusetts to Concord, New Hampshire, and back, that Thoreau took with his brother John in 1839. John died of tetanus in 1842 and Thoreau wrote the book, in part, as a tribute to his memory. While the book may appear to be a travel journal, broken up into chapters for each day, this is deceptive. The actual trip took two weeks and while given passages are a literal description of the journey — from Concord, Massachusetts, down the Concord River to the Middlesex Canal, to the Merrimack River, up to Concord, New Hampshire, and back — much of the text is in the form of digressions by the Harvard-educated author on diverse topics such as religion, poetry, and history. Thoreau relates these topics to his own life experiences, often in the context of the rapid changes taking place in his native New England during the Industrial Revolution, changes that Thoreau often laments.

About this title

About the Author

Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts. He began writing nature poetry in the 1840s, with poet Ralph Waldo Emerson as a mentor and friend. In 1845 he began his famous two-year stay on Walden Pond, which he wrote about in his master work, Walden. He also became known for his beliefs in Transcendentalism and civil disobedience, and was a dedicated abolitionist.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1545254486
• ISBN 13: 9781545254486
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 194
• Editor: Gahan D.