Walden
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."
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- HUF1,290.00
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- HUF1,290.00
Publisher Description
Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12th, 1817 on Virginia Road in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau studied at Harvard between 1833 and 1837 taking classes in rhetoric, classics, philosophy, mathematics, and science. On graduating the normal professions left him unmoved and, after a period teaching at his own school, a growing friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson moved his career onto that of writer and observer of nature. Thoreau was a philosopher of nature and how it affected the human condition. He was deeply influenced by Nature and especially the Walden woods. Eventually his published writings were to celebrate this area and his own philosophies. A noted Abolitionist Thoreau was a man to stand by his principles regardless of the minority view he might be holding. Tragically his life and career were short. In 1859, following a late-night excursion to count the rings of tree stumps during a rain storm, he fell ill with bronchitis. His health now fell into an irreversible decline with only short periods of remission. Thoreau spent his last years revising and editing his unpublished works. In the decades that followed he would be regarded as one of America’s greatest writers. Henry David Thoreau died on May 6th, 1862 at the tragically early age of just 44.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shrinking Walden into picture book size is somewhat like trying to fit Moby Dick into an aquarium. Still, Lowe's selections from Thoreau's iconoclastic work will give children a brief taste of this classic. Using only quotations from the original work, Lowe tells the story of Thoreau's year in the woods, emphasizing his descriptions of nature,stet comma and action rather than his philosophical musings. Readers see the young Thoreau putting shingles on his roof, hoeing beans, welcoming a stranger; they can revel in the natural wonders he describes--the ``whip-poor-wills,'' in summer, the drifting snow in winter, the ice breaking in the pond in spring. Sabuda's superb linoleum-cut prints lend a hard-edged brilliance to the dark woods--where sunlight is filtered through etched leaves, and moonlight shimmers on the waters of the pond made famous by a young man's experiment with life. All ages.