Civil Disobedience, Solitude and Life Without Principle

by Henry David Thoreau

Overview

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) championed the belief that people of conscience were at liberty to follow their own opinion. In these selections from his writings, we see Thoreau the individualist and opponent of injustice. Civil Disobedience(1849), composed following Thoreau''s imprisonment for refusing to pay his taxes in protest against slavery and the Mexican War, is an eloquent declaration of the principles that make revolution inevitable in times of political dishonor. Solitude, from his masterpiece, Walden (1854), poetically describes Thoreau''s oneness with nature and the companionship solitude offers to those who want to be rid of the travails of the world to discover themselves. Life without Principle(posthumously published 1863) decries the way in which excessive devotion to business and money coarsens the fabric of society: in merely making a living, the meaning of life gets lost.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615921492
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/29/2011
Series:	Literary Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	90
File size:	173 KB

About the Author

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is one of the most inspirational figures in American literature. He is the author of dozens of books and essays, including On Civil Disobedience, The Maine Woods, and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Thoreau was a noted transcendentalist whose year and a half living in the wilderness was chronicled in the storied and beloved 1854 memoir Walden.

Date of Birth:

July 12, 1817

Date of Death:

May 6, 1862

Place of Birth:

Concord, Massachusetts

Place of Death:

Concord, Massachusetts

Education:

Concord Academy, 1828-33); Harvard University, 1837