American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher, renowned for having lived the doctrines of Transcendentalism as recorded in his masterwork, Walden (1854), and for having been a vigorous advocate of civil liberties, as evidenced in the essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849).

1817–62, American author and naturalist, b. Concord, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1837. Thoreau is considered one of the most influential figures in American thought and literature. A supreme individualist, he championed the human spirit against materialism and social conformity. His most famous book, Walden (1854), is an eloquent account of his experiment in near-solitary living in close harmony with nature; it is also an expression of his transcendentalist philosophy.

Thoreau grew up in Concord and attended Harvard, where he was known as a serious though unconventional scholar. During his Harvard years he was exposed to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who later became his chief mentor and friend. After graduation, Thoreau worked for a time in his father’s pencil shop and taught at a grammar school, but in 1841 he was invited to live in the Emerson household, where he remained intermittently until 1843. He served as handyman and assistant to Emerson, helping to edit and contributing poetry and prose to the transcendentalist magazine, The Dial.

In 1845 Thoreau built himself a small cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, near Concord; there he remained for more than two years, “living deep and sucking out all the marrow of life.” Wishing to lead a life free of materialistic pursuits, he supported himself by growing vegetables and by surveying and doing odd jobs in the nearby village. He devoted most of his time to observing nature, reading, and writing, and he kept a detailed journal of his observations, activities, and thoughts. It was from this journal that he later distilled his masterpiece, Walden. The journal, begun in 1837, was also the source of his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), as well as of his posthumously published Excursions (1863), The Maine Woods (1864), Cape Cod (1865), and A Yankee in Canada (1866).

One of Thoreau’s most important works, the essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849), grew out of an overnight stay in prison as a result of his conscientious refusal to pay a poll tax that supported the Mexican War, which to Thoreau represented an effort to extend slavery. Thoreau’s advocacy of civil disobedience as a means for the individual to protest those actions of his government that he considers unjust has had a wide-ranging impact—on the British Labour movement, the passive resistance independence movement led by Gandhi in India, and the nonviolent civil-rights movement led by Martin Luther King in the United States.

Thoreau is also significant as a naturalist who emphasized the dynamic ecology of the natural world. Above all, Thoreau’s quiet, one-man revolution in living at Walden has become a symbol of the willed integrity of human beings, their inner freedom, and their ability to build their own lives. Thoreau’s writings, including his journals, were published in 20 volumes in 1906.

Writer and poet, born in Concord, Massachusetts, USA. After graduating from Harvard (1837), where he began his lifelong habit of keeping journals, he taught briefly in Concord but resigned to protest the disciplinary whipping of students.
He helped in his father's pencil factory, and then, with his brother John Thoreau, opened a private school in Concord (1838), based on Transcendentalism, the literary and philosophical movement espoused by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and Orestes Brownson. When John became fatally ill, the school was closed and Thoreau lived in Emerson's home as a sort of handyman while he maintained his practice of writing in his journal; he published a few pieces in the Dial, the Transcendentalist journal, wrote poetry, and lectured at the Concord Lyceum.

In 1843-44 he went to Staten Island, New York, to tutor the children of Emerson's brother, William Emerson, and upon his return built a small structure on Emerson's land alongside Walden Pond. During his stay there (intermittently from July 4, 1845--Sept 6, 1847), he was jailed one night for refusing to pay a poll tax meant to support America's war in Mexico; in 1849 he would publish an essay on this experience, "Resistance to Civil Government' (later known as "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience'), which in its call for passive resistance to unjust laws was to inspire Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Thomas Carlyle called it the one truly original American contribution to civilization.)

During this time he completed the manuscript for A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), a ruminative account of a trip he had taken with his brother John in 1839.