Walden

Henry David Thoreau was just a few days short of his twenty-eighth birthday when he built a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond and began one of the most famous experiments in living in American history. Originally he was not, apparently, intending to write a book about his life at the pond, but nine years later, in August of 1854, Houghton Mifflin’s predecessor, Ticknor and Fields, published Walden; or, a Life in the Woods. At the time the book was largely ignored, and it took five years to sell out the first printing of two thousand copies. It was not until 1862, the year of Thoreau’s death, that the book was brought back into print. Since then It has never been out of print. Published in hundreds of editions and translated into virtually every modern language, it has become one of the most widely read and influential books ever written, not only in this country but throughout the world.
On the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the original publication of Walden, Houghton Mifflin is proud to present the most beautiful edition ever published of Thoreau’s masterpiece. The price — $28.12 — is half a cent less than Thoreau himself spent to build his cabin in Walden Woods. This new edition features spectacular color photographs by Scot Miller that capture Walden as vividly as Thoreau’s words do. The book is being published in association with the Walden Woods Project, which is dedicated to preserving the lands Thoreau wrote about. For each copy sold, Houghton Mifflin and Scot Miller are making a donation to the Walden Woods Project.