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The Adventures of Henry Thoreau: A Young Man's Unlikely Path to Walden Pond
Henry David Thoreau has long been an intellectual icon and folk hero. In this strikingly original profile, Michael Sims reveals how the bookish, quirky young man who kept quitting jobs evolved into the patron saint of environmentalism and nonviolent activism.
Working from nineteenth-century letters and diaries by Thoreau's family, friends, and students, Sims charts Henry's course from his time at Harvard through the years he spent living in a cabin beside Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.
Sims uncovers a previously hidden Thoreau-the rowdy boy reminiscent of Tom Sawyer, the sarcastic college iconoclast, the devoted son who kept imitating his beloved older brother's choices in life. Thoreau was deeply influenced by his parents-his father owned a pencil factory in Concord, his mother was an abolitionist and social activist-and by Ralph Waldo Emerson, his frequent mentor. Sims relates intimate, telling moments in Thoreau's daily life-in Emerson's library; teaching his neighbor and friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to row a boat; exploring the natural world and Native American culture; tutoring Emerson's nephew on Staten Island and walking the streets of New York in the hope of launching a writing career.
Returned from New York, Thoreau approached Emerson to ask if he could build a cabin on his mentor's land on the shores of Walden Pond, anticipating the isolation would galvanize his thoughts and actions. That it did. While at the cabin, he wrote his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers , and refined the journal entries that formed the core of Walden . Resisting what he felt were unfair taxes, he spent the night in jail that led to his celebrated essay “Civil Disobedience,” which would inspire the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
Chronicling Thoreau's youthful transformation, Sims reveals how this decade would resonate over the rest of his life, and thereafter throughout American literature and history.
Working from nineteenth-century letters and diaries by Thoreau's family, friends, and students, Sims charts Henry's course from his time at Harvard through the years he spent living in a cabin beside Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.
Sims uncovers a previously hidden Thoreau-the rowdy boy reminiscent of Tom Sawyer, the sarcastic college iconoclast, the devoted son who kept imitating his beloved older brother's choices in life. Thoreau was deeply influenced by his parents-his father owned a pencil factory in Concord, his mother was an abolitionist and social activist-and by Ralph Waldo Emerson, his frequent mentor. Sims relates intimate, telling moments in Thoreau's daily life-in Emerson's library; teaching his neighbor and friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to row a boat; exploring the natural world and Native American culture; tutoring Emerson's nephew on Staten Island and walking the streets of New York in the hope of launching a writing career.
Returned from New York, Thoreau approached Emerson to ask if he could build a cabin on his mentor's land on the shores of Walden Pond, anticipating the isolation would galvanize his thoughts and actions. That it did. While at the cabin, he wrote his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers , and refined the journal entries that formed the core of Walden . Resisting what he felt were unfair taxes, he spent the night in jail that led to his celebrated essay “Civil Disobedience,” which would inspire the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
Chronicling Thoreau's youthful transformation, Sims reveals how this decade would resonate over the rest of his life, and thereafter throughout American literature and history.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published June 11, 2013
51 people are currently reading
1095 people want to read
About the author
Michael Sims
52 books69 followersMichael Sims is the author of the acclaimed "The Story of Charlotte's Web, Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination," "Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form," and editor of "Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories" and "The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories." He lives in western Pennsylvania.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
February 25, 2019
This book is interesting, straightforward and to the point. Very good, even if it is not a complete biography of Henry Thoreau (1817-1862). It covers his youth, his night in prison, his stay at Walden Pond for two years, two month and two days. It stops before the period in his life when he began publishing books, although they are listed. It stops after his trip to Maine following his stay at Walden Pond. The latter part of his life, the fifteen years after life at the pond, is summarized briefly. The author's intention, with which I think he succeeds very well, is to show you the personality of the man, not analyze his writing.
Henry Thoreau is not idolized in this book. His weaknesses and strengths are shown. On one side, I am impressed by the man, but his weaknesses are so vivid it is impossible to view him as anything but a normal man. He strongly reminds me of my own son! A person you can love with all your heart but still get exasperated with.
What I had been taught in school about Thoreau too idolized the man, and several facts were in fact all wrong. Did you know that Walden Pond is right outside Concord, Massachusetts, where his family lived? Did you know that he could easily walk home? And he did that! Did you know that that the pond was on a piece of property owned by his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson?
The book is chock full of interesting details but they are all relevant to the central theme. A few examples: when he is a teacher we are told about the history of blackboards. As he is influenced by Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, their lives and circumstances are depicted. The poll tax is detailed so you understand why he chose to spend a night in prison. Interesting and relevant details throughout the whole book.
The narration by David Rapkin was well done. Good speed and clear. Exactly what I want from a narrator. I am not looking for theatrics or dramatizations. It is the book and its contents that interest me; the narrator should remain unobtrusive.
I definitely recommend this short book. Who was Thoreau? You will know by the book's end.
Henry Thoreau is not idolized in this book. His weaknesses and strengths are shown. On one side, I am impressed by the man, but his weaknesses are so vivid it is impossible to view him as anything but a normal man. He strongly reminds me of my own son! A person you can love with all your heart but still get exasperated with.
What I had been taught in school about Thoreau too idolized the man, and several facts were in fact all wrong. Did you know that Walden Pond is right outside Concord, Massachusetts, where his family lived? Did you know that he could easily walk home? And he did that! Did you know that that the pond was on a piece of property owned by his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson?
The book is chock full of interesting details but they are all relevant to the central theme. A few examples: when he is a teacher we are told about the history of blackboards. As he is influenced by Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, their lives and circumstances are depicted. The poll tax is detailed so you understand why he chose to spend a night in prison. Interesting and relevant details throughout the whole book.
The narration by David Rapkin was well done. Good speed and clear. Exactly what I want from a narrator. I am not looking for theatrics or dramatizations. It is the book and its contents that interest me; the narrator should remain unobtrusive.
I definitely recommend this short book. Who was Thoreau? You will know by the book's end.
January 14, 2014
GOODREADS GIVEAWAY BOOK:
If you are looking for a well-researched, well-crafted book on a man's intellectual coming of age or natural philosophy then Mr Sims book is for you. If you are looking for a book about the 1800's or Thoreau then double bonus. If you are looking for a book about a certain literary circle or abolition, or New England geography then hat trick!
I cannot recommend this book enough. We all had to read Walden in high school. It was a good book. Mr Sims gives you a "making of" not only of Walden, but the intellectual growth of a different kind of man. Mr Thoreau may have been a little odd, but Mr Sims portrayal made me notice my own little Thoreau moments. The book made Thoreau seem real in a personal sense and it made him seem accessible as a person. It took him out of that intellectual writer of classic books that they make high schoolers everywhere read and put him in that this is your kooky neighbor or that guy you went to college with but then never really "made much of himself" (me).
Mr Sims doesn't just limit the time covered to the year or so before or after Walden. He tells of Thoreau's years at Harvard, his time as a teacher (twice, and I didn't know about that), his work in the pencil business (how they make pencils is interesting enough and to know that Thoreau actually improved on the method is intriguing), his loves, his friendships, and his family tragedies. I know it is not exhaustive but it feels as if no stone were left unturned, even if Mr Sims just lifted it for a moment and moved on to the next stone.
And the book is not just about Henry, there are numerous other characters there as well. There is much said about his brother John, his friendship with Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott etc. There is a description of his night in jail that inspired "Civil Disobedience" that inspired Ghandi and King. There is so much going on in this book that I cannot even mention it in a brief review. But the book never seems too full, it seems nuanced.
A wonderful read. I hope you enjoy it as well.
If you are looking for a well-researched, well-crafted book on a man's intellectual coming of age or natural philosophy then Mr Sims book is for you. If you are looking for a book about the 1800's or Thoreau then double bonus. If you are looking for a book about a certain literary circle or abolition, or New England geography then hat trick!
I cannot recommend this book enough. We all had to read Walden in high school. It was a good book. Mr Sims gives you a "making of" not only of Walden, but the intellectual growth of a different kind of man. Mr Thoreau may have been a little odd, but Mr Sims portrayal made me notice my own little Thoreau moments. The book made Thoreau seem real in a personal sense and it made him seem accessible as a person. It took him out of that intellectual writer of classic books that they make high schoolers everywhere read and put him in that this is your kooky neighbor or that guy you went to college with but then never really "made much of himself" (me).
Mr Sims doesn't just limit the time covered to the year or so before or after Walden. He tells of Thoreau's years at Harvard, his time as a teacher (twice, and I didn't know about that), his work in the pencil business (how they make pencils is interesting enough and to know that Thoreau actually improved on the method is intriguing), his loves, his friendships, and his family tragedies. I know it is not exhaustive but it feels as if no stone were left unturned, even if Mr Sims just lifted it for a moment and moved on to the next stone.
And the book is not just about Henry, there are numerous other characters there as well. There is much said about his brother John, his friendship with Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott etc. There is a description of his night in jail that inspired "Civil Disobedience" that inspired Ghandi and King. There is so much going on in this book that I cannot even mention it in a brief review. But the book never seems too full, it seems nuanced.
A wonderful read. I hope you enjoy it as well.
August 4, 2014
The subtitle is a bit misleading--his path to Walden is not at all surprising. Indeed, if there were a category of "most likely to build a cabin outside of town and lead a semi-antisocial but self-reflective life" at Concord Academy or Harvard, he would have won it hands down.
Sims is a journalist, not a historian, so parts of this book suffer accordingly. For example, not only does he mention that the Cambridge Unitarian meetinghouse was a new structure when Thoreau was a freshman, but he mentions it again when his graduation exercises are held there. He seems a bit too in love with his research at times. He throws in a reference to the millenarian Millerist movement of "nearby" Pittsfield--which is not only at the other end of the state from Concord, but Miller himself had moved to upstate New York from Pittsfield as an adolescent. Regardless, it has zero connection to Thoreau or anybody else in the book. (He is repeatedly geographically challenged, beginning with describing Harvard College as lying to the northwest of Concord.)
Other reviews have dunned Sims for including an account of the suicide of a young Concord woman. I actually found this not only an engaging account, but revealing of the milieu. (Nathaniel Hawthorne participates in the search in a boat built by Thoreau and his brother.) Henry's non-participation itself speaks volumes about his isolation from the general life of the village.
Sims doesn't quite know what to do with Henry after he famously leaves the woods, but neither does anybody else, it seems. Overall, a well-written and engaging, and highly readable account.
Sims is a journalist, not a historian, so parts of this book suffer accordingly. For example, not only does he mention that the Cambridge Unitarian meetinghouse was a new structure when Thoreau was a freshman, but he mentions it again when his graduation exercises are held there. He seems a bit too in love with his research at times. He throws in a reference to the millenarian Millerist movement of "nearby" Pittsfield--which is not only at the other end of the state from Concord, but Miller himself had moved to upstate New York from Pittsfield as an adolescent. Regardless, it has zero connection to Thoreau or anybody else in the book. (He is repeatedly geographically challenged, beginning with describing Harvard College as lying to the northwest of Concord.)
Other reviews have dunned Sims for including an account of the suicide of a young Concord woman. I actually found this not only an engaging account, but revealing of the milieu. (Nathaniel Hawthorne participates in the search in a boat built by Thoreau and his brother.) Henry's non-participation itself speaks volumes about his isolation from the general life of the village.
Sims doesn't quite know what to do with Henry after he famously leaves the woods, but neither does anybody else, it seems. Overall, a well-written and engaging, and highly readable account.
Read
April 3, 2014Henry's journey to Walden Pond
BookPage® Review by Catherine Hollis
Wild, irregular and free, Henry Thoreau cut a distinctive figure in 19th-century Concord, Massachusetts, whether carving “dithyrambic dances” on ice skates with Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne or impressing Ralph Waldo Emerson with his “comic simplicity.” More at home in the woods than in society, Thoreau began the first volume of his celebrated journals with a simple word that also functioned as his motto: solitude.
But Thoreau was hardly a recluse, as accomplished nature writer Michael Sims shows in The Adventures of Henry Thoreau, an amiable and fresh take on the legendary sage of Walden Pond. As a friend, brother and teacher, Thoreau had many relationships that were critical to his development as a writer and thinker. Whether unconsciously imitating the speech of his beloved mentor Emerson or grieving the death of his brother John, Thoreau was as capable of deep feeling for humans as he was of delighting in the mouse, the fox and the New England pole bean.
By focusing his book on the young Henry, Sims gives us an animated portrait of an uncertain writer and reluctant schoolmaster. He portrays the questing, struggling, stubborn Henry, constantly asking “what is life?” and finding it, most often, in the woods and on the rivers. Henry’s two-week boating trip with his brother John on the Concord and Merrimack rivers shows Henry at his best, singing and paddling and living off the land like the Native Americans he so admired. Henry’s tracking abilities—his sharp eye for an arrowhead or a long-abandoned fire pit—were developed by studying the land as intently as he translated Pindar or Goethe. His time living in the woods led him ever closer to an appreciation for reading the landscape, as in his months-long winter project to study the ice and plumb the depths of Walden Pond.
As in his well-received 2011 portrait of E.B. White, The Story of Charlotte’s Web, Sims has found another subject who brilliantly bridges the worlds of nature and thought. Like White, who visited Walden Pond in 1939 to pay tribute to his predecessor, Thoreau found in plants and animals and seasonal cycles his most enduring material. Similarly, Sims has once again proven himself to be a distinctive writer on the subjects of human nature and humans in nature.
BookPage Nonfiction Top Pick, February 2014
BookPage® Review by Catherine Hollis
Wild, irregular and free, Henry Thoreau cut a distinctive figure in 19th-century Concord, Massachusetts, whether carving “dithyrambic dances” on ice skates with Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne or impressing Ralph Waldo Emerson with his “comic simplicity.” More at home in the woods than in society, Thoreau began the first volume of his celebrated journals with a simple word that also functioned as his motto: solitude.
But Thoreau was hardly a recluse, as accomplished nature writer Michael Sims shows in The Adventures of Henry Thoreau, an amiable and fresh take on the legendary sage of Walden Pond. As a friend, brother and teacher, Thoreau had many relationships that were critical to his development as a writer and thinker. Whether unconsciously imitating the speech of his beloved mentor Emerson or grieving the death of his brother John, Thoreau was as capable of deep feeling for humans as he was of delighting in the mouse, the fox and the New England pole bean.
By focusing his book on the young Henry, Sims gives us an animated portrait of an uncertain writer and reluctant schoolmaster. He portrays the questing, struggling, stubborn Henry, constantly asking “what is life?” and finding it, most often, in the woods and on the rivers. Henry’s two-week boating trip with his brother John on the Concord and Merrimack rivers shows Henry at his best, singing and paddling and living off the land like the Native Americans he so admired. Henry’s tracking abilities—his sharp eye for an arrowhead or a long-abandoned fire pit—were developed by studying the land as intently as he translated Pindar or Goethe. His time living in the woods led him ever closer to an appreciation for reading the landscape, as in his months-long winter project to study the ice and plumb the depths of Walden Pond.
As in his well-received 2011 portrait of E.B. White, The Story of Charlotte’s Web, Sims has found another subject who brilliantly bridges the worlds of nature and thought. Like White, who visited Walden Pond in 1939 to pay tribute to his predecessor, Thoreau found in plants and animals and seasonal cycles his most enduring material. Similarly, Sims has once again proven himself to be a distinctive writer on the subjects of human nature and humans in nature.
BookPage Nonfiction Top Pick, February 2014
April 6, 2021
The author weaved together countless artifacts to tell the story of Thoreau. I was always aware of Walden Pond and Civil Disobedience, but to understand how Henry Thoreau came around or grew into those writings make both those pieces of writing more interesting to me now.
I also appreciated that the author told of events of the time and didn’t provide his own color commentary. When speaking about abolition, you read this, “Just after Christmas 1845, a ten-year stint as a sovereign nation, the Republic of Texas had transformed into the twenty-eighth state. Whigs and Democrats, Northerners and Southerners, were fiercely divided on such issues as the growing notion of white domination and expansion to the western coast, the moral complexities of imperialism, and the role of slavery in Texas and any other...” While it is similar to some political discord of today, the author does not provide his own opinions, which historians have been known to do.
I also appreciated that the author told of events of the time and didn’t provide his own color commentary. When speaking about abolition, you read this, “Just after Christmas 1845, a ten-year stint as a sovereign nation, the Republic of Texas had transformed into the twenty-eighth state. Whigs and Democrats, Northerners and Southerners, were fiercely divided on such issues as the growing notion of white domination and expansion to the western coast, the moral complexities of imperialism, and the role of slavery in Texas and any other...” While it is similar to some political discord of today, the author does not provide his own opinions, which historians have been known to do.
September 28, 2017
Interesting but not riveting. I learned much I had not known before. The author's style is very anecdotal.
Read
July 17, 2015This was a lovely read. There's no rating or review because this book is underwritten by scholarship that is close to my own, and I'm not using Goodreads for scholarly back and forth.
July 14, 2021
I’ve always been curious about Thoreau. I grew up near Concord and our school field trips included a jaunt to Walden Pond, now encircled by much ‘civilization’. We were brought up to think his essay “On Civil Disobedience” was some brilliant treatise, rather than an argument he shouldn’t have to pay his poll tax.
This book includes lots of little morsels of information gleaned from letters right down to how he cooked bread but really, what is it all for? I wanted to know why he decided to hang out in the woods (though those woods were really in a friend’s backyard- he was supported all his life by people and this is what makes his refusal to pay tax so enraging.)(though he did pay the highway tax because ‘he used the highways’. Absolutely no idea of funding the greater good in this man.)
All I have been able to glean from these scattered bits of bread (not compiled in any sensible way, either temporally or by subject) is that he pretty well did whatever he wanted and everyone else fed and looked after him. Not inspiring.
It was interesting to read that his father was a pencil manufacturer and the struggles that were had with making good pencils. Good honest labour that Henry joined in on occasionally (presumably when he couldn’t get out of it).
These bits and pieces of information are utterly forgettable in the way they have been arranged.
Thoreau died of Tuberculosis, as did much of his family, again an interesting nugget with which nothing was done.
The author says he wrote much of this book holding the hand of his dying mother and typing one handed. I wish he had spent the time fully with his mother (and his young child). This added nothing to my understanding of a complex and slightly bizarre man.
This book includes lots of little morsels of information gleaned from letters right down to how he cooked bread but really, what is it all for? I wanted to know why he decided to hang out in the woods (though those woods were really in a friend’s backyard- he was supported all his life by people and this is what makes his refusal to pay tax so enraging.)(though he did pay the highway tax because ‘he used the highways’. Absolutely no idea of funding the greater good in this man.)
All I have been able to glean from these scattered bits of bread (not compiled in any sensible way, either temporally or by subject) is that he pretty well did whatever he wanted and everyone else fed and looked after him. Not inspiring.
It was interesting to read that his father was a pencil manufacturer and the struggles that were had with making good pencils. Good honest labour that Henry joined in on occasionally (presumably when he couldn’t get out of it).
These bits and pieces of information are utterly forgettable in the way they have been arranged.
Thoreau died of Tuberculosis, as did much of his family, again an interesting nugget with which nothing was done.
The author says he wrote much of this book holding the hand of his dying mother and typing one handed. I wish he had spent the time fully with his mother (and his young child). This added nothing to my understanding of a complex and slightly bizarre man.
May 27, 2014
The evolution of the nature-loving iconoclast
With 'The Adventures of Henry Thoreau,' Michael Sims peels away the layers and labels of literary icon and idiosyncratic philosopher to reveal the raw material that developed into the life of Henry Thoreau. Obviously the nonconformist did not spring fully formed into the world or immediately start beating and marching to his unique drum at full volume in his early years. Those early stages of the man's development are often ignored, although the winding path of fortune determined the figure the boy became.
The phrasing of the title as 'The Adventures of…' evokes various fictional 19th century narratives of young men coming into a fuller awareness of themselves (even Mark Twain's juvenile protagonists Tom and Huck) or emerging into the world through often circuitous routes. Thoreau did not simply grow up in Concord and suddenly decide to live a more natural life. He always loved the outdoors and explored woods, rivers and that almost mythical pond Walden that called to him from an early age.
Thoreau's 'disobedience', civil or otherwise, developed early. He dropped out of Harvard close to graduation; he quit a school teaching job because, after abiding by the expected administering of corporal punishment once, he took a stand against it on principle; he left a job in Staten Island tutoring the nephew of Ralph Waldo Emerson because he felt isolated and removed from nature and the lack of sympathetic kindred spirits like RWE (the brother and his family were poor substitutes).
He tried to live a somewhat conventional life. He attended Harvard but dropped out short of graduation, spent time as a teacher and tutor and could always fall back on work in his father's pencil factory. This was no generic factory. His father devised the numbering system for categorizing pencils based on hardness and durability of the lead. I will never again use a No. 2 pencil without thinking of Thoreau.
Sims lays out the pattern of events and sees how crucial developments changed the direction of Thoreau's life. He never was the most sociable of humans and, even from childhood, seemed distanced from his friends. He and his brother both loved the same woman, Ellen Sewall, and they both proposed to her independently of one another and were both refused on similar grounds. Neither one of them showed any promise of being prosperous and their affinity with transcendentalism definitely didn't sit well with Ellen's father. His closest relationship was probably with his brother John. They were kindred spirits. They opened a school together, they wandered the woods together and they explored rivers together. When John died (heartbreakingly depicted by Sims), Henry was devastated. He grew even more withdrawn than he usually was and he could hardly look people in the eyes without breaking down for a long time. These developments probably solidified his determination to seek a natural, simpler life with limited human contact.
He was always viewed by many of the Concord residents as odd and nonconformist but his accidental setting of a forest fire when his and a friend's campfire quickly grew out of control added the scornful label of 'woods-burner' to their attitudes toward him. Emerson's offer of some of his land rent free on which Thoreau could build a cabin near Walden Pond fulfilled a childhood dream and seemed like a perfect solution. The time at Walden was not spent in total solitude. He had visitors and he left the cabin for trips into town. He even provided the cabin as the site for an abolitionist meeting on one occasion. When Emerson departed on a European lecture tour and asked Thoreau to help look after the family and property, Thoreau took it as a sign to move on to another phase.
His determination to seek out more remote wilderness culminated in a trek into Maine with a friend and some guides up the Penobscot River and then to climb to the summit of Ktaan Mountain, a region full of Indian lore and legend. Thoreau embarked by himself farther than his companions but experienced a harsh epiphany when having a closer encounter with the forbidding wild. This area was inhospitable and reminded him that there was a good reason it was uncharted. Despite his isolationist tendencies, he was a member of human society and did not belong in these regions. He spent most of the rest of his life devoting more energy to his writing (the gestation, composition and publication of 'Walden' was eight years, four times the duration of his time living in the cabin) and lecturing.
Sims has a very free-flowing, effortless style. He provides just enough background to fill in details without weighing down his narrative with superfluous baggage. The book does contain one unnecessary diversion. Thoreau's relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne is explored in depth (probably even more than his more integral relationship with Emerson) but there is a chapter devoted to an event in which Hawthorne and his boat were enlisted in the search for the body of a woman who drowned herself. This is interesting and illuminates aspects of Hawthorne's character but it seems like an extract from another book, one devoted to Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'adventures' but one that has no bearing on Henry's development.
While stating his purpose in the introduction, to present a portrait of the artist as a young man, leading up to the seminal experience at Walden Pond, this nevertheless feels like three fourths of a great biography to me. Sims explores Thoreau's early life in great detail although he stops short of the psychological theorizing in which I've indulged in this review. However, Thoreau's life continued for another twelve years or so after this book ends. He died after the Civil War began. I'm certain that he had further relationships and epiphanies just as worthy of inclusion in a biography that could have been expanded at least another thirty pages or so. Those reservations aside, I consider this biography an excellent place to start for anyone interested in knowing more about the life and character of this unique figure in American history.
With 'The Adventures of Henry Thoreau,' Michael Sims peels away the layers and labels of literary icon and idiosyncratic philosopher to reveal the raw material that developed into the life of Henry Thoreau. Obviously the nonconformist did not spring fully formed into the world or immediately start beating and marching to his unique drum at full volume in his early years. Those early stages of the man's development are often ignored, although the winding path of fortune determined the figure the boy became.
The phrasing of the title as 'The Adventures of…' evokes various fictional 19th century narratives of young men coming into a fuller awareness of themselves (even Mark Twain's juvenile protagonists Tom and Huck) or emerging into the world through often circuitous routes. Thoreau did not simply grow up in Concord and suddenly decide to live a more natural life. He always loved the outdoors and explored woods, rivers and that almost mythical pond Walden that called to him from an early age.
Thoreau's 'disobedience', civil or otherwise, developed early. He dropped out of Harvard close to graduation; he quit a school teaching job because, after abiding by the expected administering of corporal punishment once, he took a stand against it on principle; he left a job in Staten Island tutoring the nephew of Ralph Waldo Emerson because he felt isolated and removed from nature and the lack of sympathetic kindred spirits like RWE (the brother and his family were poor substitutes).
He tried to live a somewhat conventional life. He attended Harvard but dropped out short of graduation, spent time as a teacher and tutor and could always fall back on work in his father's pencil factory. This was no generic factory. His father devised the numbering system for categorizing pencils based on hardness and durability of the lead. I will never again use a No. 2 pencil without thinking of Thoreau.
Sims lays out the pattern of events and sees how crucial developments changed the direction of Thoreau's life. He never was the most sociable of humans and, even from childhood, seemed distanced from his friends. He and his brother both loved the same woman, Ellen Sewall, and they both proposed to her independently of one another and were both refused on similar grounds. Neither one of them showed any promise of being prosperous and their affinity with transcendentalism definitely didn't sit well with Ellen's father. His closest relationship was probably with his brother John. They were kindred spirits. They opened a school together, they wandered the woods together and they explored rivers together. When John died (heartbreakingly depicted by Sims), Henry was devastated. He grew even more withdrawn than he usually was and he could hardly look people in the eyes without breaking down for a long time. These developments probably solidified his determination to seek a natural, simpler life with limited human contact.
He was always viewed by many of the Concord residents as odd and nonconformist but his accidental setting of a forest fire when his and a friend's campfire quickly grew out of control added the scornful label of 'woods-burner' to their attitudes toward him. Emerson's offer of some of his land rent free on which Thoreau could build a cabin near Walden Pond fulfilled a childhood dream and seemed like a perfect solution. The time at Walden was not spent in total solitude. He had visitors and he left the cabin for trips into town. He even provided the cabin as the site for an abolitionist meeting on one occasion. When Emerson departed on a European lecture tour and asked Thoreau to help look after the family and property, Thoreau took it as a sign to move on to another phase.
His determination to seek out more remote wilderness culminated in a trek into Maine with a friend and some guides up the Penobscot River and then to climb to the summit of Ktaan Mountain, a region full of Indian lore and legend. Thoreau embarked by himself farther than his companions but experienced a harsh epiphany when having a closer encounter with the forbidding wild. This area was inhospitable and reminded him that there was a good reason it was uncharted. Despite his isolationist tendencies, he was a member of human society and did not belong in these regions. He spent most of the rest of his life devoting more energy to his writing (the gestation, composition and publication of 'Walden' was eight years, four times the duration of his time living in the cabin) and lecturing.
Sims has a very free-flowing, effortless style. He provides just enough background to fill in details without weighing down his narrative with superfluous baggage. The book does contain one unnecessary diversion. Thoreau's relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne is explored in depth (probably even more than his more integral relationship with Emerson) but there is a chapter devoted to an event in which Hawthorne and his boat were enlisted in the search for the body of a woman who drowned herself. This is interesting and illuminates aspects of Hawthorne's character but it seems like an extract from another book, one devoted to Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'adventures' but one that has no bearing on Henry's development.
While stating his purpose in the introduction, to present a portrait of the artist as a young man, leading up to the seminal experience at Walden Pond, this nevertheless feels like three fourths of a great biography to me. Sims explores Thoreau's early life in great detail although he stops short of the psychological theorizing in which I've indulged in this review. However, Thoreau's life continued for another twelve years or so after this book ends. He died after the Civil War began. I'm certain that he had further relationships and epiphanies just as worthy of inclusion in a biography that could have been expanded at least another thirty pages or so. Those reservations aside, I consider this biography an excellent place to start for anyone interested in knowing more about the life and character of this unique figure in American history.
June 8, 2017
Michael Sims' great strength is placing the main focus, Henry Thoreau, in the context of his time. Nathaniel Hawthorne bought his boat for $7.00. The family's pencils sold in New York. He started a forest fire. He knew Louisa May Alcott and was a visitor to the family home. He had prejudices.
The book flows with family and community stories. There is documentation in the notes, but Sims does not clutter the narrative with footnotes. I felt like I have a better sense of Thoreau's personality, down to how he skated in a frozen pond. I also had a sense of his incredible powers of observation and intellect. What does a Renaissance man do in Concord? He reads, observes, writes, grows a garden, provides assistance to family and friends and he makes pencils. I was staggered by his scholarship, the extent of his observations, and his writing is still fresh and thought provoking. I going back to dabble. It seems like a great time to reread "Civil Disobedience."
The book flows with family and community stories. There is documentation in the notes, but Sims does not clutter the narrative with footnotes. I felt like I have a better sense of Thoreau's personality, down to how he skated in a frozen pond. I also had a sense of his incredible powers of observation and intellect. What does a Renaissance man do in Concord? He reads, observes, writes, grows a garden, provides assistance to family and friends and he makes pencils. I was staggered by his scholarship, the extent of his observations, and his writing is still fresh and thought provoking. I going back to dabble. It seems like a great time to reread "Civil Disobedience."
April 25, 2025
It is always wonderful to revisit my old friend Henry Thoreau. I have such reverence for him. Although I now fell that I know him even more deeply than ever before, despite my previous readings of all of his work. The author clearly understands that Thoreau was a gentle soul, and as I began reading, I could feel the sensation of his soft personality. As I wound through the years, learning more about that wild man, I came to feel as though Thoreau himself was leaning over my shoulder when I would read outside and listen to the birds sing or the rain tatter against my window, and there he says: “this is the reason I left for the woods.” This book gave me a similar transcendental peace as though I read Walden for the very first time. This book, albeit not my favorite biography of all time, brought me closer to my favorite writer of all time.
June 14, 2025
This book was marred for me by some rather lackluster fact-checking and editing. For starters, the author appears to confuse the location of the Massachusetts town of Harvard (northwest of Concord) with the location of the famed university in Cambridge (southeast of Concord). Also, President Polk was not elected in March 1845 -- he was elected in 1844 and inaugurated in 1845. Major mistakes like that made me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the book. Aside from that, while Thoreau was quite a character, the telling of his early life on these pages is just not very interesting. There are better Thoreau books out there.
March 31, 2022
Truthfully, I can’t remember what drew me to this book. I think there was some desire to understand more about HDT. This book did a nice job weaving together the 44 years of his life without focusing too deeply on the time that most focus on - the time when he wrote of his time at the cabin on Walden Pond. I did enjoy the historical small world connections that existed back in this time. I also enjoyed this book’s reminder of one of my favorite kid’s books ever: “Henry Hikes to Fitchburg.” You’d really want to read about HDT to want to pick this one up. One thumb up.
March 6, 2025
A lot of things I already knew, but I'll read any book on Thoreau. I appreciated how he wrote about Henry and his brother John, more detail into the school where they taught. Also, their adventures in their boat, and a little more scope into the town and what things were going on at the time. The author quotes other people's letters, diaries, and stories. It gives a fuller take on moments I already knew about. The focus is more about what led him to his Walden Pond years, great source material cited and incorporated.
July 22, 2017
"Harvard was sometimes denounced for serving as a breeding ground for radical freethinkers who wanted to reform both religion and society."
"All outdoors is a church"
"Aunt Louisa asked if he had made his peace with God and he replied cheekily, "I did not know we had ever quarreled, aunt."
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"All outdoors is a church"
"Aunt Louisa asked if he had made his peace with God and he replied cheekily, "I did not know we had ever quarreled, aunt."
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February 18, 2018
Enjoyed this book very much. Sims absorbed Thoreau and his friends' journals and letters and effectively integrated their words into the text of his book about Thoreau. I felt I actually heard Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne and others talking. It was a wonderful time-travel back to 1830-1860 and an entertaining biography.
February 2, 2021
After my daughter and I read Walden, discussing our favorite quotes, and falling in love with it, I bought her this book. She liked it and gave it back to me to read. I finally did and was happy to go into Thoreau's world to see how he was inspired to become the influential thinker and writer we know today. What a sweet, intelligent, awkward man. Love him.
June 22, 2024
was kind of interesting at first, but declined into hero worship. Copious quoting from Thoreau and Emerson reminded me of why I never caught fire from American transcendentalists: they never use one word when three will do. I much prefer their German predecessors and Carlyle whose bombast is at least amusing.
August 7, 2021
This was a lovely take on the typical biography. It read almost like a novel, and the focus on Thoreau's youth was interesting and well researched. Some parts dragged and felt a bit repetitive, but overall an enjoyable and informative book.
May 15, 2021
I love reading about this period in our country's literature and history. He was a remarkable man in many ways other than what is told in WALDEN or CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.
January 8, 2022
Needed a serious edit. I thought it was a clunky collection of chunks of research, clumsily tacked together. I gained little understanding of Thoreau or his work and legacy.
February 24, 2022
Clear, concise, and insightful.
December 28, 2024
Really interesting insight into the life of Thoreau, the importance of his family, key moments that shaped his character… very well researched and wonderfully readable
June 12, 2017
"I am a Schoolmaster— a Private Tutor, a Surveyor— a Gardener, a Farmer— a Painter, I mean a House Painter, a Carpenter, a Mason, a Day-Laborer, a Pencil-Maker, a Glass-paper Maker, a Writer, and sometimes a Poetaster."
Henry David Thoreau
Before I read "The Adventures of Henry Thoreau," I thought of Henry David Thoreau as the author of Walden; or, Life in the Woods and Civil Disobedience. I thought of him as a serious, reclusive student of nature, who also had strong political beliefs that led him to prefer jail over payment of a poll tax. The truth is a little more complicated.
Thoreau was no hermit - he was the third of four children of a close, loving, supportive family, had many friends, and enjoyed the busy village life. He worked as a teacher - in the village school (briefly), a small, private school run by himself and his brother John, and as a private, live-in tutor, most notably to the Emerson children. Thoreau fell in love and even proposed (unsuccessfully). Thoreau graduated in the middle of his class, and there was nothing to indicate that he would ever be famous and make the impact that he did. Indeed, in later years, some former classmates were shocked when Emerson praised Thoreau. They had not seen anything special about their former classmate.
One of my favorite parts of the book is Emerson's close friendship and mentoring of Thoreau. After Thoreau's death, Emerson referred to him as "my best friend." Thoreau also befriended Nathaniel Hawthorne and young Louisa May Alcott. And, of course, Thoreau studied nature from the time he was a very young boy. He lived at Walden Pond for two years, two months, and two days, but was not isolated from the rest of the world. In many ways, nature was a refuge for him, but that did not mean he had to cut himself off from society. He enjoyed people, especially his family and friends, and had no desire to be a hermit.
Michael Sims does an excellent job of bringing to life not only Thoreau and his family, Emerson, and, Hawthorne, but also early 19th century Concord. In many ways it is still a village, where everyone knows everyone else, people know your family's history as well as their own, and neighbors, friends, and relatives are one in the same. There are still passenger pigeons (which Thoreau studies for many years), and it is possible for Henry and his brother John to take a trip on the Concord and Merrimack rivers. While Thoreau died young (two months short of his 45th birthday), he lived a full, interesting life.
This is not the definitive biography of Thoreau, if there is such a thing. This book concentrates on Thoreau's early life and his love for and exploration of the natural world. This has made me interested in reading more about not only Thoreau, but also Emerson, Hawthorne, and the first half of the 19th century.
Highly recommended.
I also recommend The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White and the Birth of a Children's Classic by Michael Sims. This is a biography of E. B. White, author of Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and, my personal favorite, The Trumpet of the Swan.
Henry David Thoreau
Before I read "The Adventures of Henry Thoreau," I thought of Henry David Thoreau as the author of Walden; or, Life in the Woods and Civil Disobedience. I thought of him as a serious, reclusive student of nature, who also had strong political beliefs that led him to prefer jail over payment of a poll tax. The truth is a little more complicated.
Thoreau was no hermit - he was the third of four children of a close, loving, supportive family, had many friends, and enjoyed the busy village life. He worked as a teacher - in the village school (briefly), a small, private school run by himself and his brother John, and as a private, live-in tutor, most notably to the Emerson children. Thoreau fell in love and even proposed (unsuccessfully). Thoreau graduated in the middle of his class, and there was nothing to indicate that he would ever be famous and make the impact that he did. Indeed, in later years, some former classmates were shocked when Emerson praised Thoreau. They had not seen anything special about their former classmate.
One of my favorite parts of the book is Emerson's close friendship and mentoring of Thoreau. After Thoreau's death, Emerson referred to him as "my best friend." Thoreau also befriended Nathaniel Hawthorne and young Louisa May Alcott. And, of course, Thoreau studied nature from the time he was a very young boy. He lived at Walden Pond for two years, two months, and two days, but was not isolated from the rest of the world. In many ways, nature was a refuge for him, but that did not mean he had to cut himself off from society. He enjoyed people, especially his family and friends, and had no desire to be a hermit.
Michael Sims does an excellent job of bringing to life not only Thoreau and his family, Emerson, and, Hawthorne, but also early 19th century Concord. In many ways it is still a village, where everyone knows everyone else, people know your family's history as well as their own, and neighbors, friends, and relatives are one in the same. There are still passenger pigeons (which Thoreau studies for many years), and it is possible for Henry and his brother John to take a trip on the Concord and Merrimack rivers. While Thoreau died young (two months short of his 45th birthday), he lived a full, interesting life.
This is not the definitive biography of Thoreau, if there is such a thing. This book concentrates on Thoreau's early life and his love for and exploration of the natural world. This has made me interested in reading more about not only Thoreau, but also Emerson, Hawthorne, and the first half of the 19th century.
Highly recommended.
I also recommend The Story of Charlotte's Web: E. B. White and the Birth of a Children's Classic by Michael Sims. This is a biography of E. B. White, author of Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and, my personal favorite, The Trumpet of the Swan.
June 28, 2016
I really enjoyed this interesting adventure into the making of the man who would become the author of Walden. Having a cursory familiarity with the story behind Walden since college, and never having completely read it, the book, and by extension Thoreau himself, held a bit of a mythical place in my mind. The book represented the ideals of individualism, anti-materialism, self-reliance and a deference for nature, characteristics which as an aspirant enlightened young man I held in high regard and fancied as themes for my own development. However, in practice, I always kept the book on my shelf, where I believed its presence alone would both demonstrate my dedication to these progressive, intellectual values, and at the same time impress young female versions of myself whom I was lucky enough to have as guests.
What I found when I dove into this book was a crystallization of the Henry David Thoreau myth in my head, full of all kinds of tales and background of which I had no idea. I learned about his affinity for Native American lore and practices (or even his own myth of such things); his intrepid curiosity and spiritual reverence for his natural surroundings; his relationships with his siblings and friends. I had no idea that Ralph Waldo Emerson played such an integral and influential role in his life, both as a writer and as a man. I found that point very interesting as I am a big fan of RWE's work. Throw in Harvard, love lost (kind of), the struggle to find his voice as a writer, odd jobs, death - what you have is what any excellent biography eventually becomes: a vehicle for taking a myth of a person, legendary tales, and constructing a life narrative that becomes the blueprint for what the person will eventually achieve or become. That, and being particularly well-written and well paced, are what make a great biography.
I've not even mentioned how I love the way Sims ties in the wider issues of the day into this story: the development of a young, independent nation; the rise of Transcendentalism; the abolition movement; the early seedings of industrialization. These issues and more affect a young Henry Thoreau all along his path to that small wooden hut in the Walden woods.
I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in HDT or Walden, or even Emerson or Transcendentalism. It is a very well-done work on the story of what it took to become the person who took that legendary sojourn into the woods.
What I found when I dove into this book was a crystallization of the Henry David Thoreau myth in my head, full of all kinds of tales and background of which I had no idea. I learned about his affinity for Native American lore and practices (or even his own myth of such things); his intrepid curiosity and spiritual reverence for his natural surroundings; his relationships with his siblings and friends. I had no idea that Ralph Waldo Emerson played such an integral and influential role in his life, both as a writer and as a man. I found that point very interesting as I am a big fan of RWE's work. Throw in Harvard, love lost (kind of), the struggle to find his voice as a writer, odd jobs, death - what you have is what any excellent biography eventually becomes: a vehicle for taking a myth of a person, legendary tales, and constructing a life narrative that becomes the blueprint for what the person will eventually achieve or become. That, and being particularly well-written and well paced, are what make a great biography.
I've not even mentioned how I love the way Sims ties in the wider issues of the day into this story: the development of a young, independent nation; the rise of Transcendentalism; the abolition movement; the early seedings of industrialization. These issues and more affect a young Henry Thoreau all along his path to that small wooden hut in the Walden woods.
I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in HDT or Walden, or even Emerson or Transcendentalism. It is a very well-done work on the story of what it took to become the person who took that legendary sojourn into the woods.
June 29, 2014
I've always been fascinated with the life of Henry David Thoreau. The book Walden and his essay "Civil Disobedience" both impressed me from the first times I came across them in junior high and high school. So I was delighted to see this brand new book about his life, his writings and his ultimate significance to so many issues and challenges, not just of his time and age, but even for today. The book drew from his own journals and writings, as well as accounts left by others from his community of family and close friends in Concord, Massachusetts of the 1800's. And what a community that was....home to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Alcott family and numerous other figures in the early Transcendentalism and anti-slavery movements. However, Thoreau's place in this community was, like so much of what we know of his life, not without controversy. Respected for his intelligence as a thinker and his hard work as a laborer in the community, but also maligned and even marginalized for a while for accidentally setting a large brushfire while camping in the woods with a friend, Thoreau was always seen as a person of somewhat eccentric behaviors and yet, tremendous gifts. Never a father himself, he was marvelous with children and taught school at times, usually in his own home school, or as an in-home tutor for others. As an avid naturalist, he recorded in detailed calendar form, every natural event as it occurred in his local environment. These meticulously kept records are still used for comparison purposes by climate change experts today. His influence and contributions to modern movements and philosophies are impressive, for sure. I could cite many more ways that his life and work have continued to affect others for generations, but I think it might be best to just recommend this book to anyone interested in knowing the life of this interesting and prolific figure and his place in the beginning of so much of what we have come to value about our socially and environmentally conscious ways of thinking today.
February 17, 2016
From his childhood, through his time at Harvard, his years of drifting from one job to another, this narrative biography follows a literary icon. A quirky introverted intellectual, Thoreau was a teacher and a private tutor, a pencil-maker (actually improving on the process), and a handyman. He was friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson (who was also his mentor), Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Alcotts. Thoreau had a deep love of the natural world which inspires many of his actions – a trip down the river with his brother, his time on Walden Pond, a trip to the mountains of Maine. On land borrowed from Emerson, he built a cabin on Walden Pond – the notes of his time there would result in his most well-known literary work, Walden. He also spent a night in jail for refusal to pay his poll taxes – the notes of his time there would result in another of his well-known works, Civil Disobedience, which inspired Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Luckily, the book is far more than a list of facts, it is the story of a man’s life – his work, his friendships, his dreams, successes, and failures. It’s the story of a trip with his brother, teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne to row a boat, falling in love, spending time with Emerson and his family. I was captivated by the tale of his life which made me wish for simpler times, when berries grew in abundance by the roadside, ponds were full of fish, and forests and fields were lush with vegetation. And I was admittedly more than a little jealous of his ability and opportunity to spend several years in his waterfront cabin, thinking, reading, and writing…
See more on my blog at www.watchingthewords.wordpress.com
Luckily, the book is far more than a list of facts, it is the story of a man’s life – his work, his friendships, his dreams, successes, and failures. It’s the story of a trip with his brother, teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne to row a boat, falling in love, spending time with Emerson and his family. I was captivated by the tale of his life which made me wish for simpler times, when berries grew in abundance by the roadside, ponds were full of fish, and forests and fields were lush with vegetation. And I was admittedly more than a little jealous of his ability and opportunity to spend several years in his waterfront cabin, thinking, reading, and writing…
See more on my blog at www.watchingthewords.wordpress.com
November 30, 2015
This biography focuses on young Thoreau's coming of age, in the educational, intellectual and literary sense, in addition to highlighting the fact that Thoreau was often surrounded by friends and family, a fact that seems to have been lost amidst the portrayals of Thoreau as a stubborn and cantankerous loner. Beginning with Thoreau's education and his important friendship with Emerson, this biography ends by emphasizing Thoreau's time at Walden as one that was not only about solitude and independence but also about hosting friends and visiting with like-minded souls. While I learned more about Thoreau from this work, I found parts of it dragged, particularly Thoreau's educational years before and while he studied at Harvard, and his brief experience as a tutor for Emerson's nephew in Staten Island. I enjoyed the chapters detailing the extent of Thoreau's friendship with Hawthorne while he lived at the Old Manse in Concord and the chapters, of course, detailing his friendship with Emerson and his time spent at Walden Pond. In fact, I learned more about Hawthorne, Emerson, and Bronson Alcott than I had expected to. But overall, the book did not engage me from start to finish as I had been hoping it would.
May 13, 2014
A great biography of Thoreau's earlier years, before his writing reached much of an audience, when he was just young man trying to find his ways through life. It was a fascinating look into the forces that shaped his character. After his Harvard years, like many college grads as many of us were once, he stumbled bleary-eyed from an academic cocoon into the real world, where his ability to compose verse in Latin or write a book in ancient Greek was not deeply appreciated. If he was born in these days, I suppose you would see him in a grungy T-shirt, working in a Subway somewhere, on nights and weekends playing drum in a friend's band that's going nowhere fast. So how did he transform into the man who wrote Walden and others? It's still very much a mystery after you finish the book, but I think it's fine for the origin of genius to remain somewhat mysterious. We can admire a flower's blossom without knowing the inner workings of its biochemistry, and here in this book we get to view, albeit from a distance, the blossoming of a great writer's mind. Sometimes that's reward enough.
July 2, 2016
This is it, I've finished reading the last book for my thesis! Gasp! I really enjoyed Sims' book, even though I had already read both the "famous" Thoreau biographies (Walter Harding's "Days of Henry Thoreau" and Robert D. Richardson, Jr's "Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind"). While those are more suited to serious scholarly pursuit, Sims' text does a nice job of bridging the gap. It's well-researched and provides a nuanced portrayal of Thoreau and his time period, while also being entertaining and a good read. Sims focuses more on the young Henry Thoreau and, as the title suggests, the factors that led him to famously take up residence at Walden Pond for two years. I enjoyed this glimpse into the "making of" my favorite American author and his humanity, as well as his genius.
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