Excursions

A selection of ruminative nature writing on walking and the beauty of New England, here Thoreau’s characteristically wide-ranging and philosophical style offers a multitude of fascinating observations. Excursions presents Thoreau’s most studied and expansive collection of writing on the natural world. An early advocate of conservationism, he discusses here, in mesmerising prose, the complex but essential relationship between man and nature. This edition includes a remarkable ‘Biographical Sketch’ by Thoreau’s great contemporary and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was a pioneering author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, and philosopher. His most celebrated works include ‘Walden’ and ‘Civil Disobedience’.

Jeffrey S. Cramer is curator of collections for The Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods and the editor of ‘Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition’ and ‘What I Lived For: The Annotated Selected Journals of Henry D. Thoreau’, both published by Yale University Press.