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Walden

Introduction and Annotations by Bill McKibben

Part of Beacon Classics

Author Henry David Thoreau

Introduction by Bill McKibben

Hardcover

$24.00 US

| $32.00 CAN

Beacon Press

On sale Dec 02, 2025 | 344 Pages | 9780807024102

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A deluxe edition of Henry David Thoreau’s groundbreaking environmentalist masterpiece, including an introduction and annotations by renowned social and environmental critic Bill McKibben

A Beacon Classics edition, featuring spot gloss cover and retro, classic palette

First published in 1854, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden has influenced generations of readers and continues to inspire and inform anyone with an open mind, a love of nature, and a longing for simplicity and contemplation. Recounting the author’s reflections on simple living after a period he spent in a small cabin he built near Walden Pond, the book places Thoreau firmly in his role as cultural and spiritual seer.

Bill McKibben offers both an intelligent and captivating introduction and a body of insightful annotations to Thoreau’s original edition. He addresses two philosophical questions posed by Thoreau: “How much is enough?” and, “How do I know what I want?”, to draw meaningful connections between Thoreau's writing and our lived experience in the 21st century.

This beautiful hardcover edition is more accessible and relevant than ever in an age of technological change and ecological crisis.

Bill McKibben gives us Thoreau's Walden as the gospel of the present moment. --Robert D. Richardson, Jr., author of Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind

'[Thoreau] says so many pithy and brilliant things, and offers so many piquant, and, we may add, so many just, comments on society as it is, that this book is well worth the reading, both for its actual contents and its suggestive capacity.' --A. P. Peabody, North American Review, 1854

'[Walden] still seems to me the best youth's companion yet written by an American, for it carries a solemn warning against the loss of one's valuables, it advances a good argument for traveling light and trying new adventures, it rings with the power of powerful adoration, it contains religious feeling without religious images, and it steadfastly refuses to record bad news.' --E. B. White, Yale Review, 1954

'Bill McKibben gives us Thoreau's Walden as the gospel of the present moment.' -Robert D. Richardson, Jr., author of Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a writer and philosopher as well as a naturalist. Walden is considered his masterpiece.

Bill McKibben is the author of Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age as well as The End of Nature and The Age of Missing Information. He lives with his family in the Adirondack Mountains.

Henry David Thoreau View titles by Henry David Thoreau

Introduction by
Bill McKibben

WALDEN
Economy

Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

Reading

Sounds

Solitude

Visitors

The Bean-Field

The Village

The Ponds

Baker Farm

Higher Laws

Brute Neighbors

House-Warming

Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors

Winter Animals

The Pond in Winter

Spring

Conclusion