A Basic Resource Library

as outlined in episode one of the video series, Studying Thoreau.

Click on titles or photos to reach purchase links.

1. A copy of Walden.
Any unabridged copy of Walden will do.     Annotated editions are also available. Here's one.     Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition. Edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Yale University Press, 2004.

2. A compilation volume.
Should have the complete text of Walden, plus a variety of excerpts from other books, a selection of essays, and a selection of poems. Here's one.     The Portable Thoreau. Edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Books, 2012.

3. A quote book.
Make sure the one you choose has attributions that reveal where the quotes came from. Here are three options.     Thoreau's Book of Quotations. Edited by Paul Negri. Dover Publications, 2000.
Quotations of Henry David Thoreau. Edited by Richard Smith. Applewood, 2017.
The Quotable Thoreau. Edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Princeton University Press, 2011.

4. An edition of the Journal.
No "complete" edition of Thoreau's journal exists in print. Here are three options.     The Journal: 1837-1861. Preface by John Stilgoe. Edited by Damion Searls. New York Review Books, 2009.

I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau. Edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Yale University Press, 2007.

The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau. In Fourteen Volumes, Bound as Two. Edited by Bradford Torrey and Francis H. Allen. With a Foreword by Walter Harding. Dover Publications, 1962.     This large two-volume set duplicates the journal pages as they were first published in the set of Thoreau's writings released by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1906. They are out of print. Here are links to find used copies for purchase.     Volume One. Volumes I-VII (1837-October 1855)     Volume Two. Volumes VII-XIV (November 1855-1861)      As a set, perhaps.

5. A good biography.
Here are three now-classic ones to choose from.     Henry David Thoreau: A Life. By Laura Dassow Walls. The University of Chicago Press, 2017.
The Days of Henry Thoreau: A Biography. By Walter Harding, Dover Publications, 1962, 1982.
Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind. By Robert R. Richardson Jr. University of California Press, 1986.

6. A book for historical context.
Walden Pond: A History. By W. Barksdale Maynard. Oxford University Press, 2004.