In the years following Thoreau's death in 1862, his sister and his friends undertook the responsibility of editing his work. For many, Walden has served as a touchstone. Thoreau's words expressed the concerns of many of his contemporaries as industrialization and war permanently altered the world around them, just as they struck a chord in a generation of young people in the 1960s and 1970s who opposed the modern military-industrial complex and sought peace and simplicity in their lives. The book has inspired other young people to follow his example and retire to a lonely spot-even if only in imagination-to ponder the world and their place in it. Although Walden enjoyed only moderate success in Thoreau's lifetime, his experiment at the pond would spark considerable interest in the years to come. Over the course of the next three hundred-odd pages, Thoreau outlined his philosophy of life, politics, and nature, laying the foundation for a secure place in the canon of great American writers. With these words, Henry David Thoreau began the tale of his experiment of simple living at Walden Pond. Myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I livedĪlone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built By Elizabeth Witherell, with Elizabeth Dubrulle
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