Happy Birthday, Henry David Thoreau!

Henry David Thoreau was born on this day in 1817, which would make him 195 years old!

There is probably no New Englander more revered than Thoreau, and his Walden is still widely read today. We have the book in multiple formats including The Annotated Walden: Walden: or, Life in the Woods [818 THO].

Plan a visit to Walden Pond. It is less than an hour away, and worth the trip. For a photographic history of Walden Pond, borrow Thoreau's Walden by Tim Smith [974.44 SMI]; it is part of the popular "Images of America" series of books.

For a fictionalized look at Thoreau and his time in Concord, borrow Woodsburner: A Novel by John Pipkin [F PIP].

Woodsburner springs from a little-known event in the life of one of America's most iconic figures, Henry David Thoreau. On April 30, 1844, a year before he built his cabin on Walden Pond, Thoreau accidentally started a forest fire that destroyed three hundred acres of the Concord woods--an event that altered the landscape of American thought in a single day.