Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/17

 INTRODUCTION.

fortune of Henry Thoreau as an author of books has been peculiar, and such as to indicate more permanence of his name and fame than could be predicted of many of his contemporaries. In the years of his literary activity (twenty-five in all), from 1837 to 1862,—when he died, not quite forty-five years old, he published but two volumes, and those with much delay and difficulty in finding a publisher. But in the thirty-two years since his death, nine volumes have been published from his manuscripts and fugitive pieces,—the present being the tenth. Besides these, two biographies of Thoreau have appeared in America, and two others in England, with numerous reviews and sketches of the man and his writings,—enough to make several volumes more. At present, the sale of his books and the interest in his life are greater than ever; and he seems to have grown early