The Correspondence of Henry D. Thoreau: Volume 2: 1849-1856

by Henry David Thoreau, Robert N. Hudspeth (Editor), Elizabeth Hall Witherell (With), Lihong Xie (With)

Overview

This is the second volume in the first full-scale scholarly edition of Thoreau’s correspondence in more than half a century. When completed, the edition’s three volumes will include every extant letter written or received by Thoreau—in all, almost 650 letters, roughly 150 more than in any previous edition, including dozens that have never before been published.

Correspondence 2 contains 246 letters, 124 written by Thoreau and 122 written to him. Sixty-three are collected here for the first time; of these, forty-three have never before been published. During the period covered by this volume, Thoreau wrote the works that form the foundation of his modern reputation. A number of letters reveal the circumstances surrounding the publication of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers in May 1849 and Walden in August 1854, as well as the essays “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849; now known as “Civil Disobedience”) and “Slavery in Massachusetts” (1854), and two series, “An Excursion to Canada” (1853) and “Cape Cod” (1855). Writing and lecturing brought Thoreau a small group of devoted fans, most notably Daniel Ricketson, an independently wealthy Quaker and abolitionist who became a faithful correspondent. The most significant body of letters in the volume are those Thoreau wrote to Harrison Gray Otis Blake, a friend and disciple who elicited intense and complex discussions of the philosophical, ethical, and moral issues Thoreau explored throughout his life.

Following every letter, annotations identify correspondents, individuals mentioned, and books quoted, and describe events to which the letters refer. A historical introduction characterizes the letters and connects them with the events of Thoreau’s life, a textual introduction lays out the editorial principles and procedures followed, and a general introduction discusses the history of the publication of Thoreau’s correspondence. Proper names, publications, events, and ideas found in both the letters and the annotations are included in the index, which provides full access to the contents of the volume.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691170589
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	11/13/2018
Series:	Writings of Henry D. Thoreau , #28
Pages:	720
Sales rank:	313,161
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Robert N. Hudspeth is Research Professor of English at the Claremont Graduate University and professor emeritus of English at the University of Redlands. He is the editor of The Letters of Margaret Fuller and the author of Ellery Channing. Elizabeth Hall Witherell is Editor-in-Chief of The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau. Lihong Xie is Associate Textual Editor of The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau.

Date of Birth:

July 12, 1817

Date of Death:

May 6, 1862

Place of Birth:

Concord, Massachusetts

Place of Death:

Concord, Massachusetts

Education:

Concord Academy, 1828-33); Harvard University, 1837

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

From William D. Ticknor and Company February 8, 1849

Boston Feb. 8. 1849

Henry D Thoreau Esq Concord Mass.
Dear Sir,

We find on looking over publishing matters that we cannot well undertake anything more at present. If however you feel inclined we will publish "Walden or Life in the Woods" on our own a/c, Say One Thousand copies, allowing you 10 p. c. copyright on the Retail Price on all that are sold. The style of printing & binding to be like Emersons Essays.

Respy Ticknor & Cay.

Correspondent: William Davis Ticknor (1810-1864) was the son of William and Betsey Ellis Ticknor. A Boston book publisher, Ticknor published works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Alfred Tennyson in addition to T's Walden. He came to Boston in 1827 and, in 1832, after a brief time at a bank, joined John Allen and Timothy Harrington Carter to form Allen and Ticknor. Two years later Ticknor became sole owner of the firm. In 1843, Ticknor took on James T. Fields as a partner, and the firm became known as William D. Ticknor and Company. The firm's imprint was "Ticknor and Fields" from May 1854 on, but that did not become the company's formal name until May 1864.

To George Augustus Thatcher February 9, 1849

Concord Feb. 9th 1849

Dear Cousin,

California, mad dogs, and rail-roads are still the great topics here as everywhere. About half a dozen are gone and going to California from Concord. Mr Hoar's second son Edward, who was a lawyer in New York, has just taken leave of his friends here to go to the new Ophir. Many are going from the neighborhood of Boston of whom one would not have expected it. For my part, I should rather have gone before the gold was found. I think that those who have delayed thus long will be prudent if they wait a little longer and hear from their acquaintances who went out early. It is impossible yet to tell what is truth. After all we have had no quite trustworthy and available report yet. We shall have some rich stories to read a year or two hence.

I am interested in George's progress in Engineering. I should say let him begin with Algebra at once, and soon, or at the same time, if convenient, take up Geometry–it is all important that he be well grounded in this. In due time will come Trigonometry & Nat. Philosophy.– A year hence he might profitably commence Surveying. I talked lately with Samuel Felton, Chief Engineer and Superintendent of the Fitchburg RR, and brother of Prof. Felton of Cambridge, with reference to George. He considers "Davies' Surveying"–a West Point book–the best. This is the one I used in teaching Surveying eight or nine years ago. It is quite simple & thorough–and to some extent national or American.

I would have George study without particular reference to the Scientific School and so he will be best prepared to suck its whole sweet in the shortest time– There is "Bigelows Technology" a popular and not expensive book in 2 vols, used, recently at least, at Cambridge. I am sure that it will interest him if he has a taste for mechanics. He never need study it, but only read it from time to time, as study and practice make it more intelligible. This is one of the best books for him to own that I know of– There is a great deal of interesting & valuable matter for his or any body's reading in the Penny Magazine–the best periodical of the kind that was ever printed.

In the mean time he should improve his opportunities to visit machine shops of all kinds. It should be a part of every mans education today to understand the Steam Engine. What right has a man to ride in the cars who does not know by what means he is moved? Every man in this age of the world may and should understand pretty thoroughly–the Saw and Grist mill––Smelting–casting–and working in iron– –cotton and woolen machinery–the locomotive & rail-road–the Steamboat–the telegraph &c &c A man can learn from a few hours of actual inspection what he can never learn from books–and yet if he has not the book-knowledge to generalize & illuminate his particulars he will never be more than a journeyman & cannot reach the head of his profession. I lately spent a day at the repair shop of the Eastern RR. company, East Boston, and at Hinckley & Drury's in Boston–the largest Locomotive Manufactory in this country. They turn out 7 a month worth from 8 to 9000 dollars apiece. I went into it, and knowing the principle before, saw and understood the use of every wheel & screw, so that I can build an engine myself when I am ready. I now read every paragraph in which the word locomotive occurs with greater interest and profit than before.

I have no news to send respecting Helen She is about the same that she has been for some months, though it may be a little weaker, as she thinks; Her spirits are very good and she is very comfortable for a sick person. Sophia & Mother would perchance be sick if Helen were not.

I look wishfully towards the woods of Maine, but as yet I feel confined here.

Please remember me to Rebecca Jane?? Cousins Charles & Mary &c

yrs truly Henry D. Thoreau

P.S.–I have just received your letter for which I thank you. I should be glad to come to Bangor.– I hope that I shall so conduct as to deserve your good wishes– Excuse my business like scroll.

Correspondent: George Augustus Thatcher (1806-1885), son of Samuel and Sarah Brown Thatcher, was a businessman in Bangor, Maine. In 1832 he married T's cousin Rebecca Jane Billings (1813-1883), daughter of Caleb and Nancy Thoreau Billings. Thatcher was active in the antislavery cause, and he accompanied T on his 1846 and 1853 trips to Maine.

To George Augustus Thatcher February 16, 1849

Concord Feb. 16th 1849

Dear George,

I am going as far as Portland to lecture before their Lyceum on the 3 Wednesday in March.– By the way they pay me $25.00– Now I am not sure but I may have leisure then to go on to Bangor and so up river. I have a great desire to go up to Chesuncook before the ice breaks up–but I should not care if I had to return down the banks and so saw the logs running; and I write now chiefly to ask how late it will probably do to go up the river–or when on the whole would be the best time for me to start? Will the 3 week in March answer?

I should be very glad if you would go with me, but I hesitate to ask you now, it is so uncertain whether I go at all myself. The fact is I am once more making a bargain with the Publishers Ticknor & Co, who talk of printing a book for me, and if we come to terms I may then be confined here correcting proofs–or at most I should have but a few days to spare.

If the Bangor Lyceum should want me about those times, that of course would be very convenient, and a seasonable aid to me. Shall I trouble you then to give me some of the statistics of a winter excusion to Chesuncook?

Of Helen I have no better news to send. We fear that she may be very gradually failing, but it may not be so. She is not very uncomfortable and still seems to enjoy the day. I do not wish to foresee what change may take place in her condition or in my own.

The rest of us are as well off as we deserve to be–

Yrs truly Henry D. Thoreau

Correspondent: See p. 4.

From William D. Ticknor and Company February 16, 1849

Boston Feby. 16 1849

Henry D Thoreau Esq

Dear Sir,

In reply to your fav. of 10th inst. we beg to say that we will publish for your a/c–"A Week on the Concord River."–

The following general Estimate based upon a vol. 1/3 larger than Emerson's Essays. first Series (as suggested by you) we present for your consideration– Say–1000 Cops. 448 pages–like Emerson's Essy. 1st Series printed on good paper @ $4.00 pr ream will cost in sheets– $381.24.–The binding in our style–fine cloth–

12¢ pr Copy-or for the Edn 120.00/$501.24

In the the above Estimate we have included for alterations & Extra corrections $15.– It may be more,–or less– This will depend on yourself. The book can be condensed & of course cost less– Our Estimate is in accordance with Sample copy. As you would not, perhaps, care to bind more than 1/2 the Ed at once,–You would need to send $450.–to print 1000 Cops. & bind 1/2 of the Same.–

Yours Very Truly W D Ticknor & Co

Concord Mass

Correspondent: See p. 1.

From Nathaniel Hawthorne February 19, 1849

Salem, Feb 19th. 1849

My dear Thoreau,

The managers request that you will lecture before the Salem Lyceum on Wednesday evening after next– that is to say, on the 28th inst. May we depend on you? Please to answer immediately, if convenient.

Mr Alcott delighted my wife and me, the other evening, by announcing that you had a book in press. I rejoice at it, and nothing doubt of such success as will be worth having. Should your manuscripts all be in the printer's hands, I suppose you can reclaim one of them, for a single evening's use, to be returned the next morning;–or perhaps that Indian lecture,which you mentioned to me, is in a state of forwardness. Either that, or a continuation of of the Walden experiment (or, indeed, anything else,) will be acceptable.

We shall expect you at 14 Mall-street.

Very truly Yours, Nath Hawthorne.

Correspondent: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Clark Manning Hathorne, graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, in 1825 and then returned to his native Salem, Massachusetts, to become a writer. On July 9, 1842, Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody (1809-1871), daughter of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody of Salem; that afternoon the couple took up residence at the Old Manse in Concord. In 1845 they returned to Salem and lived there until 1850. Though he would become T's friend, Hawthorne was candid in his estimation of T: in his October 21, 1842, letter to Epes Sargent, who was starting Sargent's New Monthly Magazine, Hawthorne described T as "a wild, irregular, Indian- like sort of fellow" who was "somewhat tinctured with Transcendentalism" but who had "stuff in him to make a reputation of" (Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 15:656).

To Nathaniel Hawthorne February 20, 1849

Concord Feb 20th 1849

Dear Hawthorne,

I will come to your house in Mall street on the 28 inst. and go from thence to the Lyceum

I am glad to know of your interest in my book, for I have thought of you as a reader while writing it. My MSS. are not even yet in the hands of the printer, but I am doing my best to make him take them into his hands. In any case the MSS which he will begin with is not that from which I shall read.

I wish to be remembered and read also by Mrs Hawthorne.

Yrs Sincerely Henry D. Thoreau.

Correspondent: See p. 11.

From Amos Bronson Alcott February 20, 1849

Boston, Feb. 20, 1849.

Dear Sir,

I send you, herewith, the names of a select company of gentlemen, esteemed as deserving of better acquaintance, and disposed for closer fellowship of Thought and Endeavor, who are hereby invited to assemble at No. 12, West-street, on Tuesday, the 20th of March next, to discuss the Advantages of organizing a Club or College, for the study and diffusion of the Ideas and Tendencies proper to the Nineteenth Century; and to concert measures, if deemed desirable, for promoting the ends of good fellowship.

The Company will meet at 10, A. M.

Your presence is respectfully claimed by

Yours truly, A. Bronson Alcott.

Rooms, 12, West-street.

Correspondent: Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), son of Joseph Chatfield and Anna Bronson Alcox, married Abigail May (1800-1877), daughter of Joseph and Dorothy Sewall May, in 1830. A self-taught man and a gifted teacher, Alcott ran his Temple School in Boston from 1834 to 1839. He had to close the school following a controversy over the unorthodox religious content of his teaching, and soon afterward, in March 1840, the Alcotts moved to Concord. On June 1, 1843, they moved to a farm near Harvard, Massachusetts, where Alcott and Charles Lane formed the short-lived reform community "Fruitlands." The Fruitlands experiment was not successful, and the Alcotts left the farm on January 16, 1844. They attempted to stay near the farm but returned to Concord in October, where they lived until 1847. At the time of this letter, Alcott was living with his family in Boston and supporting his household partly by leading "conversations" in nearby cities. Alcott and T probably met at Emerson's in April 1839; they became good friends. Alcott called T a "sylvan man accomplished in the virtues of an aboriginal civility, and quite superior to the urbanities of cities" (Journals of Bronson Alcott 1938, p. 238). T wrote of Alcott in a winter 1845-1846 Journal entry: "Will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve His attitude is one of greater faith & expectation than that of any man I know–" (Journal 2 1984, pp. 223-224).

To George Augustus Thatcher March 16, 1849

Concrd March 16th 1849

Dear Cousin,

I shall lecture in Portland next Wednesday. It happens, as I feared it would, that I am now receiving the proof-sheets of my book from the printers, so that without great inconvenience I cannot make you a visit at present. I trust that I shall be able to ere long. I thank you heartily for your exertions in my behalf with the Bangor Lyceum–but unless I should hear that they want two lectures to be read in one week or nearer together, I shall have to decline coming this time.

Helen remains about the same.

Yrs in haste Henry D Thoreau

Correspondent: See p. 4.

To George Augustus Thatcher March 22, 1849

Portland March 22 –49

Dear George,

The first thing I saw on being introduced to the Portland Lyceum last evening was your letter lying on the desk, but I had already received your first in Concord, and moreover had written to you, so that this note occasioned me no disappointment. I had a good audience, considering the weather, or not considering it, it seemed to me Mr Emerson follows me here. I am just in the midst of printing my book which is likely to turn out much larger than I expected. I shall advertise another–"Walden or Life in the Woods" in the first, which, by the way, I call "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers." When I get through with this business, if nothing else occurs to prevent I shall enjoy a visit to you and to Maine very much, but I do not promise myself as yet, nor do I wish you or Maine to promise yourselves to me. I leave for Boston in a few moments. Remember me to all friends–

Yours in haste Henry D. Thoreau.

PS. I thank you again and again for your exertions in my behalf.

Correspondent: See p. 4.

To Elizabeth Palmer Peabody April 5, 1849

Concord April 5th 1849

Miss Peabody,

I have so much writing to do at present, with the printers in the rear of me, that I have almost no time left but for bodily exercise; however, I will send you the article in question before the end of next week. If this will not be soon enough will you please inform me by the next mail.

Yrs respecly Henry D. Thoreau

P.S. I offer the paper to your first volume only.

Correspondent: Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804-1894), daughter of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, was a friend of Dr. William Ellery Channing, Hawthorne, and Emerson. She taught at Alcott's Temple School in the mid-1830s, opened a bookstore in Boston in 1840, and was for a brief time the publisher of the Transcendentalist magazine, the Dial. She wrote three essays for the Dial: "A Glimpse of Christ's Idea of Society" in October 1841, pp. 214-228; "Plan of the West Roxbury Community" in January 1842, pp. 361-372; and "Fourierism" in April 1844, pp. 473-483. She also published the short-lived periodical Aesthetic Papers. Peabody was later prominent in the kindergarten movement.

To Harrison Gray Otis Blake April 17, 1849

Concord Ap. 17th 1849

Dear Sir,

It is my intention to leave Concord for Worcester, via Groton, at 12 o/clock on Friday of this week. Mr Emerson tells me that it will take about two hours to go by this way. At any rate I shall try to secure 3 or 4 hours in which to see you & Worcester before the lecture. Yrs in haste Henry D. Thoreau.

Correspondent: Harrison Gray Otis Blake (1816-1898), son of Francis and Eliza Chandler Blake of Worcester, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard University in 1835 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1838. Though he preached occasionally in 1838 and 1839, Blake never became a minister. In 1839 he opened a school for boys in Charlestown; after leaving that school, he taught sporadically until 1857. Blake was married twice: to Sarah Chandler Ward (1817-1846), daughter of Samuel and Sarah Chandler Ward, in 1840, and to Nancy Pope Howe Conant (1828-1872), daughter of Jacob and Betsy Pope Conant, in 1852. More than a friend, Blake was a disciple who received T's most elaborate and philosophical letters. After T's death, Blake edited four volumes of extracts from T's Journal from the manuscripts Sophia Thoreau bequeathed him.

To Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz June 30, 1849

Concord Mass June 30th–49

Dear Sir,

Being disappointed in not finding you in Boston a week or two since, I requested Dr. Gould to make some inquiries of you for me; but now, as I shall not be able to see that gentleman for some time, I have decided to apply to you directly.

Suffice it to say, that one of the directors of the Bangor (ME.) Lyceum has asked me to ascertaain simply–and I think this a good Yankee way of doing the business–Whether you will read two or three lectures before that institution early in the next lecture season, and if so, what remuneration you will expect.

Of course they would be glad to hear more lectures, but they are afraid that they may not have money enough to pay for them.

(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

Letters 1849-1856, 1,
EDITORIAL APPENDIX,
Notes on Illustrations, 529,
Acknowledgments, 533,
Editorial Contributions, 536,
General Introduction, 537,
Historical Introduction, 573,
Textual Introduction, 628,
Library Symbols, 644,
Short Titles, 646,
Bibliography, 655,
Index, 667,

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