December 1853
Concord, Massachusetts; Home of Ralph W. and Lidian (Jackson) Emerson
"An Excursion to Moosehead Lake"

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On 23 January 1858, Thoreau wrote a letter to James Russell Lowell, who at the time was editor of the newly formed Atlantic Monthly and who had recently contacted Thoreau about submitting one of his papers for publication. "The most available paper which I have," Thoreau responded, "is an account of an excursion into the Maine woods in ‘53; the subjects of which are the Moose, the Pine Tree & the Indian. Mr. Emerson could tell you about it, for I remember reading it to his family, after reading it as a lecture to my townsmen. It consists of about one hundred manuscript pages, or a lecture & a half, as I measure" (C, p. 504). Thoreau clearly refers to his second Maine woods lecture, "An Excursion to Moosehead Lake," which he had delivered before the Concord Lyceum on 14 December 1853 (see lecture 42 above), while Emerson had been in Maine lecturing. We conjecture, therefore, that Thoreau must have given a private reading of the lecture to Emerson’s family in late December, after Emerson returned from Maine.