“Barkley’s biography brings Hotham back to life and paints a picture of a complex and fascinating man.” —Richard Smith, acclaimed Living History interpreter of Henry David Thoreau Nearly seven years after Henry Thoreau died in 1862 of tuberculosis in Concord, Massachusetts, a young theological student from New York City arrived in Concord in November 1868. Edmond Hotham had never been there, but he immediately began preparations to pursue the “wild life.” He met transcendentalist poet (William) Ellery Channing, a former close friend of Thoreau’s who had suggested to Thoreau that he build his cabin at Walden Pond. It was Channing who likely introduced Hotham to transcendentalist leader Ralph Waldo Emerson (the “Sage of Concord”), and Emerson who gave Hotham permission, like Thoreau before him, to build his “Earth-cabin” on the poet’s property at Walden Pond. Hotham built his shanty on the pond’s shore about 100 yards in front of Thoreau’s, where he attempted to out-economize and out-simplify Thoreau. Hotham’s sojourn as the second “hermit” at Walden Pond exemplified the growing adulation of Henry David Thoreau and his literary work. Author Terry Barkley has gleaned archival sources, vital records, period newspaper accounts, and census rolls for everything that is known about Edmond Hotham. The Other “Hermit” of Thoreau’s Walden Pond is the first book-length treatise on Hotham, half of which is wholly new material. It far supersedes the late Kenneth Walter Cameron’s 1962 article on Hotham, which until now was the most complete study of the man. Barkley’s groundbreaking study book is an important addition to the Concord-Walden Pond story and a fascinating read. To quote Thoreau, “What is once well done is done forever.”

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience: This is Thoreau's classic protest against government's interference with individual liberty. One of the most famous essays ever written, it came to the attention of Gandhi and formed the basis for his passive resistance movement.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Thoreau's account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement - a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materialistic existences of 'quiet desperation' for a simple life within their means, finding spiritual truth through awareness of the sheer beauty of their surroundings.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Henry David Thoreau's vision of personal freedom is indelibly etched on the American consciousness. 'We need the tonic of wildness,' Thoreau wrote in Walden, and by turning his back on town amenities to build a house on Walden Pond in 1845, he helped shape our notions of the individual, subsistence, and a moral relation to nature. Raising white beans and potatoes that he sold to his Concord neighbors, he stayed for two years; his book records both the philosophy he developed while living alone and the facts of his everyday life. Included here with the complete text of Walden are selections from Thoreau's first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; 'A Plea for Captain John Brown,' his eloquent defense of the American abolitionist's rebellion at Harper's Ferry, and such masterpieces as his famous essay 'Civil Disobedience,' in which he describes a night spent in prison for refusing to pay a poll tax to a government that condoned slavery.