The Thoreau Society: Scholarship

Institutions | The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau | Other books by & about HDT

Periodicals Dedicated to HDT | Online Resources | Organizations & Scholarly Journals

Are you beginning research on Henry David Thoreau or his writings? Our first recommendation is to "start at home" -- start with the books and magazine articles that are available through your public , school, or academic library. Most libraries provide periodical databases and interlibrary loan services, which both essentially bring outside sources directly to you. You do not necessarily need to travel to the sources, unless they are primary documents that never leave the home library premises.

Anyone individual who lives, works, attends school, or owns property in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is at least 13 years of age may register for an eCard through the Boston Public Library. A BPL eCard will give you access to more periodical databases than your local library can probably provide, including historic newspaper and biographical databases. It's a great resource for both primary and secondary accounts, as well as for more current, published material. Visit the Boston Public Library web site at http://www.bpl.org and click on "My Library Account" for more details.

Here are more Thoreau research sources:

1. Institutions.

Check out our list of archives that contain tons of useful information, including original manuscripts. Key here are The Thoreau Institute, which houses the archives of the Thoreau Society; and the William Munroe Special Collections department of the Concord Free Public Library, which includes original Thoreau manuscripts and surveys.

2. The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau.

For decades, no scholarly edition of Thoreau's writings existed. In 1965, Thoreau scholar Walter Harding proposed and began the Princeton edition project, called The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, which had as its goal to make available accurate texts of all of Henry’s writings in 30 volumes. He was the project’s editor-in-chief for eight years. The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau provides, for the first time, accurate texts of Thoreau's complete works: his writings for publication, his Journal, his correspondence, and other uncollected papers. Much of the material in this edition has never been published before. The project is currently based at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and is under the direction of Elizabeth H. Witherell. As of February 2008, fourteen of the projected 30 volumes had been published by the Princeton University Press. Selected volumes were released in paperback in 2004, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the release of Walden. Individual volumes are available for purchase through The Shop at Walden Pond.

3. Other books by and about Henry David Thoreau.

Dozens of books about Thoreau are published each year, as are compilations of Thoreau quotes and re-issues of major works. You can find lists of them on WorldCat.org, and many of the newest titles are available for purchase through The Shop at Walden Pond. Authors often appear at the Thoreau Society Annual Gathering.

The Thoreau Project, a nonprofit initiative of Calliope, Inc. Includes information about Thoreau, especially for students and teachers.

A place to share information and documents by and about the American writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), in English and most specially in other European languages: castellano [Spanish], euskara [Basque], italiano [Italian], français [French], svenska [Swedish], português [Portuguese], deutsch [German], català [Catalonian], galego [Galician] and more to come.

This interlinked hypertext was first created in Spring 1999 by Virginia Commonwealth University graduate students studying in Professor Ann Woodlief's class in Studies in American Transcendentalism. It is a work in progress, and submissions of papers, texts and notes on them, and links are welcomed; full credit will be given to papers selected for the site.

Links to information about or by Henry David Thoreau on other sites; some of the links are to original material or etexts on or by Thoreau found on this site.

The Victorian Literary Studies Archive provides a way to search for words or key phrases in 12 books or essays written by Thoreau.