Page:Some unpublished letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau; a chapter in the history of a still-born book.djvu/72

 and Merrimack Rivers. This particular work the Michigan man soon found that he could not get from the publishers of Walden, nor could they inform him where it might be had, so utterly had Munroe's publication disappeared from the market. But the tang of Walden had "touched the spot" and the hungry man was ravenous for a taste of the Week. He had to write to Thoreau himself asking where that book could be bought; and thus began the correspondence, which I shall read with whatever of explanation I may be able to give.

Please bear in mind the situation: piled up in that garret-chamber, 'as high as my head,' are the seven hundred rejected books—cast into the "age" and by it most unmistakably cast out. Four years had they lain in Munroe's cellar,—more than once