Thoreau’s Writing
The Walden Woods Project, August 30, 2016
Abstract
The Walden Woods Project describes how Thoreau developed observations into published writing. He began his journal in 1837 at Emerson’s suggestion and often expanded brief field notes after returning from walks. Journal material could become lectures, essays and books; he sometimes cut passages out and pasted them into new manuscripts. The account follows the composition of Walden from neighbors’ questions about his life at the pond through lectures and seven drafts over nine years. Its thematic organization compresses two years at the pond into one annual cycle. The page also discusses A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and lists sources for the account. – AI-generated abstract.
