The Walden Woods Projects Thoreau Institute

The Thoreau Update

The e-newsletter from the Walden Woods Project’s
Thoreau Institute Library

E-Newsletter Winter 2006
Volume 2, Issue 1

Curator of Collections: Jeffrey S. Cramer

"I have sometimes imagined a library, i.e. a collection of the works of true poets, philosophers, naturalists, etc., deposited not in a brick and marble edifice in a crowded and dusty city. . . but rather far away in the depths of the primitive forest. . ."
— Henry D. Thoreau, 3 February 1852

Selected sketches from Thoreau's Journal

"No pages in my Journal are so suggestive as those which contain a rude sketch."
-- Thoreau in his Journal, 25 April 1857

Thoreau’s Life & Writings

This year, following the lead of such premier websites as the Library of Congress' "American Memory” project and “Making of America” (Cornell University and the University of Michigan), the “Thoreau’s Life & Writings” portion of our website will be revised to bring you searchable PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) files of the standard edition of Thoreau’s writings (the 1906 Houghton Mifflin 20-volume Writings of Henry David Thoreau), as well as many of his works as they appeared in their first publication in The Atlantic Monthly, The Dial, Aesthetic Papers, The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Sartain’s Union Magazine, and elsewhere. PDF files look like the original publication, virtually giving you a picture of the page, but they also contain a searchable text enabling you to search for an exact phrase or a word. Below are just a few examples of what is to come:

o Winter Days (The Atlantic Monthly, January 1885)

o Thoreau’s Contributions to The Dial

o The Service (1902 edition)

o Looming of the Sun (an excerpt from Cape Cod,
n The Boatswain’s Whistle, 18 November 1864)

Many files on our website are created in part with the help of volunteers. Volunteers expand and supplement the services the Library is able to offer to the public. Donating their time for short or long term projects, volunteers work either on-site at the Thoreau Institute or off-site. You are invited to join our dedicated group of volunteers! By sharing your time and talent with us, you can make a big difference in the quality of service the Thoreau Institute is able to provide. For more information, please e-mail the curator at curator@walden.org.

Be sure to check our calendar for upcoming events and programs.

Several hard-to-find texts by Scott Nearing
have been added to our website,
with more to be added soon.

Check out our updated page of
Herbert W. Gleason Photographs

One portion of The Thoreau Society Archives housed at the Thoreau Institute consists of three boxes of prints of Herbert Gleason photographs of “Thoreau Country” procured from either Roland Robbins or Nick Mills. Roland Robbins, a past President of the Thoreau Society, purchased the glass negatives of the Gleason images from the print house of John Handy when it closed.

Some Recently Cataloged Titles:

o Christy, Arthur. A Thoreau Fact-Book as interpreted by Arthur Christy (New York : The Colophon, 1934)

o Dall, Caroline Healey. Daughter of Boston: The Extraordinary Diary of a Nineteenth-century Woman, edited by Helen R. Deese (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005)

o Fleck, Richard F. Breaking through the Clouds (Boulder: Pruett Pub., c2004)

o Gookin, Daniel. A Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England, in the Years 1675, 1676, 1677 ( New York: Arno Press, 1972: Reprint of the 1836 ed. published in v. 2 of Archaeologia americana; transactions and collections of the American Antiquarian Society)

o Gookin, Daniel. Historical collections of the Indians in New England (New York: Arno Press, 1972: Reprint of the 1792 ed. printed by Belknap and Hall, Boston)

o Henry Hikes to Fitchburg (VHS) (Weston Woods, 2001)

o Letters of a Nation: A Collection of Extraordinary American Letters, edited by Andrew Carroll (New York: Kodansha International,1997)

o McFarland, Philip James. Hawthorne in Concord (New York: Grove Press, c2004)

o Nearing, Scott. Oil and the Germs of War (Ridgewood, N.J. : N.S. Nearing, c1923)

o Nearing, Scott. Victory without Peace (Harborside, Maine: The Good Life Center, 2005)

o Nearing, Scott. Social Religion: An Interpretation of Christianity in Terms of Modern Life (New York : The Macmillan Company, 1913)

o Nearing, Scott. Reducing the Cost of Living (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1914.)

o Ostrow, Judy. The House that Jill Built: A Woman’s Guide to Home Building (Layton, Utah: Gibbs, Smith, Publisher, 2004)

o Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper, 2005)

o Selected Writings of the American Transcendentalists, edited by George Hochfield (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004)

o Thoreau, Henry David. Bonds of Affection: Thoreau on Dogs and Cats, edited by Wesley T. Mott; foreword by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005)

o Thoreau, Henry David. Daily Observations: Thoreau on the Days of the Year, edited by Steve Grant (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005)

o Thoreau, Henry David. The Maine Woods, edited with notes by Richard Fleck and Koh Kasegawa (Tokyo : Hokuseido, 1983)

o Thoreau, Henry David. Neighbor of the Foxes: Henry David Thoreau from his Journals (California: Tall Tree Press, 1995)

o Thoreau, Henry David. True Harvest: Readings form Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year, collected by Barry M. Andrews (Boston: Skinner House Books, c2005)

For more information about these and other titles,
go to Thoreau Institute Library Catalog

The Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods

44 Baker Farm, Lincoln, MA 01773-3004

Phone/Fax: (781) 259-4730 ~ E-mail: Jeff.Cramer@walden.org

Hours: Monday-Friday 10:00-4:00 by appointment

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To show your support, please click here.

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