Thoreau, Henry David

8vo. One gathering slightly proud. Publisher's blind-stamped brown cloth, gilt spine title, publisher's catalog with May date bound in at rear; gilt very bright, cloth unrubbed and fresh, corners tight and without a trace of the usual rubbing and fraying at spine ends, free even from minor shelfwear, a very fine copy indeed. Black morocco gilt slipcase.

see cataloguing
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First edition and an extremely fine example of a cornerstone of American letters. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived". Combining nature, philosopy and the classics, Thoreau's account of his year in a shack along the shore of Walden pond was wholly unlike what had come before and his acheivement was a uniquely American contribution to literature.