Walden
 Edited by J. Lyndon Shanley, with an Introduction by John Updike
Princeton University
Press
Paperback: ISBN 0-691-09612-0 (2004)
Thoreau's Walden, ostensibly a simple account of a year spent
alone in a cabin by a pond in the woods, is one of the most influential
and complex books in American literature. Eight years in the writing,
Walden was not a commercial success when it was published in 1854, and it was not reprinted
until 1862, the year of Thoreau's death. But by 1900 Walden was
acclaimed by many as a classic, among the finest prose works of the century.
It has been increasingly recognized as an important document of social
criticism and dissent. It has been seen as a religious testament, with
a kinship to oriental mysticism. It has been described as a mythic book,
and it has been used as a Freudian key to the mind of its iconoclastic
author. Thoreau's words have become increasingly significant in modern
times. Anticipating the evils of modern society and the problems of modern
man, Walden's meanings seem more relevant every day.
Our paperback series edition of Thoreau's Walden celebrates the 150th anniversary of the publication of Thoreau's best-known work. Includes the text and a new introduction by John Updike. Available from Princeton University Press.
Cape Cod
 Edited
by Joseph J. Moldenhauer, with an Introduction by Robert Pinsky
Princeton University
Press
Paperback: ISBN 0-691-11842-6 (2004)
From the fatal shipwreck of the opening episode to the late reflections
on the Pilgrims' Cape Cod landing and reconnaissance, encounters with
the ocean dominate Thoreau's compelling account of Cape Cod. His trips
to the Cape, he wrote, were intended to afford "a better view than I had
yet had of the ocean"; and in the plants, animals, topography, weather,
people, and human works of Massachusetts' long projection into the Atlantic,
Thoreau finds "another world." Throughout, Thoreau relates the experiences
of fishermen and oystermen, farmers and salvagers, lighthouse-keepers
and ship-captains, as well as his own intense confrontations with the
sea as he travels the land's outmost margins.
Our paperback series edition of Thoreau's Cape Cod, available from Princeton University Press, includes the text and a new introduction by Robert Pinsky.
The Higher Law:
Thoreau on Civil Disobedience and Reform
(essays from Reform Papers)
 Edited by Wendell Glick, with an Introduction by Howard Zinn
Princeton University
Press
Paperback: ISBN 0-691-11876-0 (2004)
The selections from the polemical writings of Thoreau that make up The Higher Law represent every stage in his twenty-two years of active writing.
Consequently, they are a microcosm of his literary career, allowing the
reader to achieve a full sense of Thoreau's evolution as a writer and
thinker. The volume opens with "The Service," one of the best examples
of Thoreau's early style and interests, and contains ten other essays
as well.
Our paperback series edition of The Higher Law includes the essays from Reform Papers and a new introduction by Howard Zinn. Available from Princeton University Press.
Essays from The Higher Law
- The Service
- Paradise (To Be) Regained
- Herald of Freedom
- Wendell Phillips Before Concord Lyceum
- Resistance to Civil Government
- Slavery in Massachusetts
- A Plea for Captain John Brown
- Martyrdom of John Brown
- The Last Days of John Brown
- Life without Principle
- Reform and the Reformers
The Maine Woods
 Edited by Joseph J. Moldenhauer, with an Introduction by Paul Theroux
Princeton University
Press
Paperback: ISBN 0-691-11877-9 (2004)
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.
Our paperback series edition of Thoreau's The Maine Woods includes the text and a new introduction by Paul Theroux. Available from Princeton University Press.
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
 Edited by Carl F. Hovde, William L. Howarth, and Elizabeth Witherell, with an Introduction by John McPhee
Princeton University
Press
Paperback: ISBN 0-691-11878-7 (2004)
In the late summer of 1839 Thoreau and his elder brother John made a
two-week boat-and-hiking trip from Concord, Massachusetts, to the White
Mountains of New Hampshire. After John's sudden death in 1842, Henry began
to prepare a memorial account of their excursion. At Walden Pond he wrote
two drafts of this story, which he continued to revise and expand until
1849, when he arranged for its publication at his own expense. The contemporary
audience for A Week was troubled by its heterodoxy and apparent
formlessness; but modern readers have come to see it as an appropriate
predecessor to Walden, with Thoreau's story of a river journey
actually depicting the early years of his spiritual and artistic growth.
Our paperback series edition of Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers includes the text and a new introduction by John McPhee. Available from Princeton University Press.
Ordering Information
The Walden Anniversary paperback series will appear in stores starting in June 2004. Advance orders may be placed directly from the Princeton
University Press Website, or by phoning 1-800-777-4726 (for North American customers) or 1-609-883-1759 (for all other customers) between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.
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