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Cover of The Maine Woods by Henry David Thoreau

The Maine Woods

  • 340 pages ยท about 6 hours
  • First published 1864
  • 112 editions
  • Free to read

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1 About this book

The Maine Woods is a characteristically Thoreauvian book: a personal account of exploration, of exterior and interior discovery in a natural setting, conveyed in taut, workmanlike prose. Thoreau's evocative renderings of the life of the primitive forest--its mountains, waterways, fauna, flora, and inhabitants--are valuable in themselves.

But his impassioned protest against despoilment in the name of commerce and sport, which even by the 1850s threatened to deprive Americans of the "tonic of wildness," makes The Maine Woods an especially vital book for our time. This edition presents Thoreau's fullest account of the wilderness as he intended it.

Good for readers who want: a true life story, history, nature, and a book they can read free online.

  • Biography
  • History
  • Nature
  • Personal Memoirs
  • Biography & autobiography
  • Philosophy
  • Philosophy of nature
  • Natural history, outdoor books

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3 About Henry David Thoreau

1817โ€“1862

Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817 โ€“ May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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