Henry David Thoreau

One of the Library of Congress’s “Books That Shaped America”

One of The Guardian's 100 Best Nonfiction Books

“Walden...is arguably the most important work of literary nonfiction in the American canon.”—New York Times

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, HarperCollins is proud to present this library of American classics drawn from our storied catalog. Walden is a foundational transcendentalist treatise from Henry David Thoreau on self-reliance, simplicity, and how to escape the corruption and consumerism of modern society.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

On July 4, 1845, Henry David Thoreau began a two-year experiment: Living alone in a self-built hut on the edge of Walden Pond outside of Concord, Massachusetts, "to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Having observed and condemned changes in 19th century society -- increasing materialism, urbanism, and injustice from the state -- Thoreau endeavored to adopt a lifestyle in opposition to these modern vices. Walden is the account of how and why Thoreau lived during this time, and his conclusions about the natural world and humanity's place in it.

Rich with detailed observations on New England's woods and the "bottomless" Walden pond, layered with analysis of the philosophers that inspired Thoreau's unusual project, and framed by the passage of the four seasons, Walden became a foundational text of the transcendentalist movement and is now accepted as one of the most important works of American literature, changing the course of Western psychology, political philosophy, and the tradition of nature writing.