Walking
Files
Document Type
Book Chapter
Description
Introduction by Adam Tuchinsky
"In Wildness is the preservation of the World," wrote Henry David Thoreau in his iconic deathbed essay "Walking." Published posthumously in 1862, "Walking" became a seminal influence in the environmental movement. "Above all," wrote Thoreau, "we cannot afford not to live in the present." He extolled walking as a delightful and necessary idleness, an antidote to the burdens of civilization, a means of immersing ourselves in nature and awakening to the moment. "Walking" is widely recognized as Thoreau's "other" masterpiece, Walden in a more concise form. Each reading of "Walking" offers new epiphanies from a writer and thinker who, two centuries after his birth in 1817, remains a towering figure in American nature writing. In the introduction to this book, Adam Tuchinsky accessibly and engagingly unpacks the essay's nineteenth-century associations and highlights the startling modernity of its sentiments.
ISBN
9780884486138
Publication Date
2017
Publisher
Tilbury House Publishers
City
Thomaston, ME
Keywords
Henry David Thoreau, Bicentennial
Recommended Citation
Thoreau, Henry D., and Adam-Max Tuchinsky. Walking. Tilbury House Publishers, 2017.
Comments
This edition of Walking has been updated with a new introduction from USM professor Adam Tuchinsky in celebration of the centennial of Thoreau's birth in 1817.