Henry Thoreau is considered, along with Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Walt Whitman and Nathaniel Hawthorne, as one of the leading figures in early
American literature, and Walden is without doubt his most influential book. It
recounts the author's experiences living in a small house in the woods around
Walden Pond near Concord in Massachusetts. Thoreau constructed the house
himself, with the help of a few friends, and one of the reasons why he moved
into it was in an attempt to see if he could live independently and away from
society. The result is an intriguing work which blends natural history with
philosophical insights and