Page:The Maine woods.djvu/16

 INTRODUCTION.

WHEN Thoreau died in Concord, in May, 1862,

he had given to literature only two volumes, — “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” and “Walden,” — books of a strange, memorable quality,

combining poetic and philosophic thoughts on nature with shrewd observations on humanity. In addition to these two publications he had contributed to maga- zines a few studies of natural history and of authors, also narratives of excursions into the mountains and along shore to gain a wider knowledge of nature and of frontier life. Following the custom of the day, yet with individual zeal and ﬁdelity, he had kept commonplace-books and journals from the year of his graduation at Harvard, 1837, until a few weeks before his death. Some of this material had been used for lyceum lectures.

One of Thoreau’s most helpful friends was Horace Greeley, who urged, in 1854, that a volume of these lmagazine articles should be collected and published as “Miscellanies.” He wished to include “Ktaadn land the Maine Woods,” which he had placed for Thoreau in Sartain’s Union Magazine six years before, securing for the author ﬁfty dollars. Greeley offered to ﬁnd a publisher for this proposed book, but the plan was not carried out, probably because of lThoreau’s reluctance to impose further service upon

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