Bonds Of Affection: Thoreau On Dogs And Cats Format: Paperback

Henry David Thoreau is celebrated as one of America's greatest nature writers, yet few readers are aware of the tender, perceptive, and often humorous attention he gave to the animals closest to human domestic life. Bonds of Affection: Thoreau on Dogs and Cats gathers the finest of Thoreau's own writings in which he turns his unflinching powers of observation and his characteristic philosophical wit toward our oldest animal companions.

In these pages, Thoreau emerges not merely as a solitary sojourner in the wild, but as a keen and affectionate chronicler of the relationships between people and the animals who share their lives. Whether tracking the behavior of a neighborhood dog, or meditating on the inscrutable self-possession of a cat, Thoreau reveals the depth of feeling and moral seriousness he believed we owe to all living creatures. His observations are sometimes wry, sometimes lyrical, and always charged with his conviction that an attentive life demands that we see the world through eyes other than our own.

Beautifully complemented by original engravings from celebrated artist Barry Moser and framed by a foreword from bestselling animal author Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, this elegantly produced volume is both a delight for lovers of Thoreau and an essential companion for anyone who has ever shared their home―and their heart―with a dog or a cat.

Published in cooperation with the Thoreau Society, Bonds of Affection introduces readers to a Thoreau who is at once familiar and surprising: playful and profound, grounded in the everyday, and alive to the wonder of the natural and domestic world alike.

WESLEY T. MOTT is a Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Arts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he has built a distinguished career as one of the foremost scholars of American Transcendentalism. He has served as an advisory editor of The Concord Saunterer, the journal of the Thoreau Society, and as a past president of both the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society and the Thoreau Society. His extensive scholarly publications include edited volumes, contributions to major reference works, and essays on Emerson, Thoreau, and related figures in American intellectual history, including work on Ralph Waldo Emerson in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and Emersonian Circles: Essays in Honor of Joel Myerson (co-edited with Robert E. Burkholder).