Contemporary Notices and Reviews of 
Walden; or, Life in the Woods
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Daily Evening Traveller [Boston] (9 August 1854): p. 1

This is a sort of autobiography of a hermit, who lived two years alone in the woods on Concord, Mass., a mile from any neighbor. Mr. Thoreau's object in thus turning hermit, appears to have been—so far as he had any particular end in view—to ascertain by experiment, what are the absolute necessities of man; to illustrate in his own person the truth of Watt's line: "Man wants but little here below." And his return to civilized life again, confirmed that companion line of Watt's—"Nor wants that little long;" though it must be confessed Mr. Thoreau held out on little or nothing, longer than most men could have done. It is a curious and amusing book, written in the Emersonian style, but containing many shrewd and sensible suggestions, with a fair share of nonsense.

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