Two books, and they're very different
Civil Disobedience (1849) is 20 pages, written after a night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax that funded slavery and the Mexican-American war. Its argument is that when law and conscience conflict, conscience wins, and that a just person's place in an unjust state is prison.
Walden (1854) is 300 pages about two years, two months and two days in a cabin by a pond, and it isn't the nature idyll people expect. It's cranky, funny, hectoring, and structured as an argument that most people are living lives they never chose.
| Book | Year | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Civil Disobedience | 1849 | 20-page essay. The most consequential thing he wrote. |
| Walden | 1854 | The experiment at the pond. Start with Economy and Where I Lived. |
| A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers | 1849 | His first. It sold badly and he kept the unsold copies. |
| The Maine Woods | 1864 | Posthumous. Real wilderness, and he found it far less charming than Walden. |
| Journals | 1837-61 | Two million words. The scholars' favourite, and increasingly the readers' too. |
| Walking | 1862 | Short essay on sauntering. The most quotable thing after Walden. |
The honest facts about the cabin
Worth having, because the debunking is now more widely known than the book.
Walden Pond was about a mile and a half from Concord, on land owned by Emerson. Thoreau walked into town regularly, had visitors constantly, dined with the Emersons, and yes, his mother did some of his laundry. He was not a hermit in a wilderness and never claimed to be.
The experiment was never about isolation. It was about reducing expenses far enough to find out how little a person actually needs, and what becomes possible with the time that frees. He's explicit about the arithmetic; the chapter called Economy is essentially a budget.
That said, the mythologising is his fault as much as his readers'. He wrote it to sound more solitary than it was.
Why Civil Disobedience outlived him
Gandhi read it in South Africa and cited it as a formative influence on satyagraha. Martin Luther King Jr. described reading it as a student and being convinced by it. It's a short essay by an obscure American that helped end an empire and segregate-proof a movement, which is a decent return on a night in jail.
Around him
Emerson was his mentor, landlord and eventual disappointment. Our simple living shelf covers what the genre became. Books for slowing down puts him alongside the modern versions.
365 Days of Philosophy places him in the sequence, one page a morning.
Common questions
Which Thoreau book should I read first?
Civil Disobedience if you want the argument that changed history, at 20 pages. Walden if you want the masterpiece; start with the chapters Economy and Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.
Was Thoreau really living alone in the wilderness?
No. The cabin was a mile and a half from Concord on Emerson's land. He walked into town often, had frequent visitors, and his mother did some of his laundry. He never claimed to be a hermit, though he wrote to sound more solitary than he was.
What is Walden actually about?
Reducing your expenses far enough to discover how little you need, and what becomes possible with the time that frees. The chapter Economy is essentially a household budget.
Who did Civil Disobedience influence?
Gandhi, who read it in South Africa and cited it as formative for satyagraha, and Martin Luther King Jr., who described being convinced by it as a student.
Is Walden boring?
Parts are, particularly the extended nature observation. The opening chapters are argumentative, funny and frequently rude about his neighbours.