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[...]

Writing was the central passion of Emerson's life. While his thoughts on the craft are well developed in "The Poet", "The American Scholar", "Nature", "Goethe", and "Persian Poetry", less well known are the many pages in his private journals devoted to the relationship between writing and reading. H[...]