Thoreau, Henry David

The Writings. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1906.



20 vols. in 8s (9 x 6 in; 222 x 148 mm).  Illustrated with 7 photogravures including two frontispieces, one duotone and one colored, in each volume.  With 6 leaves of holograph manuscript mounted in volume I. Publisher's fine binding by the Riverside Press (stamped on verso of endpaper) of full olive morocco gilt, sides with double-ruled strapwork design intertwined with vine and foliate device, enclosed within single rule, spine in six compartments with gilt-ruled raised bands, lettered in second and fourth panels, morocco pastedowns repeating strapwork and foliate motif over a deep green central morocco panel, watered silk endpapers; slight but uniform fading to spines, four volumes with minor insect damage to leather hinges at either head or tail, tiny wormhole to top of lower joint on two volumes, else a little minor shelfwear.

spines faded, minor damage to a few leather hinges, see catalog description
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Thoreau on the dissipated state of French-Canadians, number 8 of 600 copies of the Manuscript Edition, each signed by the publisher. While the edition was commonly issued with a single leaf of manuscript, the present contains a lengthy portion from  "A Yankee in Canada."

"... the French in Canada, in many respects, follow the customs of the Indians, with whom they converse every day. They make use of the tobacco-pipes, shoes, garters, and girdles of the Indians. They follow the Indian way of making war with exactness; ..."

Thoreau traveled to Canada in 1850 and his account of the journey was published serially in Putnam's Monthly in 1853 as "An Excursion to Canada." The first book edition, in 1866, collected the account as "A Yankee in Canada." The present manuscript covers pages 58-61 of that edition, wherein Thoreau goes into some shocking detail on the conditions of the French-Canadians he encountered in Montmorenci County. Living in a basically feudal system, he records the population as "... very inferior, intellectually and even physically, to that of New England. In some respects they were incredibly filthy. It was evident that they had not advanced since the settlement of the country, that they were quite behind the age, and fairly represented their ancestors in Normandy a thousand years ago. Even in respect to the common arts of life, they are not so far advanced as a frontier town in the West three years old ..."