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Title: Life of Henry David Thoreau by Henry Stephens Salt, George Hendrick, Willene Hendrick, Fritz Oehlschlaeger ISBN: 0-252-01993-8 Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr (Pro Ref) Pub. Date: September, 1993 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: An early Thoreau bio, this one from England
Comment: Widespread fame eluded Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) during his lifetime. Posthumous biographies helped to draw attention to his life in Concord and thus to his writings. These books can be shelved into four categories:

(1) His journals themselves, in addition to his books and essays, provide the closest primary information. Chronologically though, they should be ranked third because they were made available to the public more than 40 years after his death when they were first printed in 1906.

(2) A few friends and acquaintances released book-length biographies based on their personal relationships with the man. William Ellery Channing's _Thoreau: the poet-naturalist_ (1873) and Frank B. Sanborn's _American Men of Letters: Henry D. Thoreau_ (1882) are the classics.

(3) Men who were inspired by Thoreau's writings began to correspond with his Concord friends in order to learn more and to write their own books. Examples include the 1890 publications of Henry S. Salt's _Life of Henry David Thoreau_ and Samuel Arthur Jones's _Thoreau: A Glimpse_.

(4) Everyone who came afterward had to rely on interpretation of all of the writings and letters from those previous categories. The most famous remain Henry Seidel Canby (_Thoreau_, 1939) and Walter Harding (_The Days of Henry Thoreau: A Biography_, 1962).

Englishman Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) published his first Thoreau biography in 1890, and released a revision in 1896. Neither one sold well. By 1908, he was looking for a publisher to print a third and more complete edition. While he spent the rest of his life in that search, his efforts were to no avail. But he sent a copy of all of his material to Professor Raymond Adams of the University of North Carolina, in the hopes that the professor would be able to use it for publication. Dr. Adams was too daunted when Henry Canby's book was released in 1939, and so Henry Salt's notes were archived with his own. That is, until they were found and reprinted here. The result is the best revision of Salt's meticulous research and correspondence, augmented by minor corrections made by the 20th-century compilers.

Salt was a genuine Thoreau disciple, and so this biography paints a positive picture of the man. It's probably my second favorite, with Canby's being first. There may still be a few small errors that weren't fixed. (Thoreau's companion on the Minnesota trip was Horace Mann *Jr.*, a title needed to distinguish him from his more famous father.) Overall, though, this book is a welcome addition to the ranks, and we are lucky that the editors found the manuscript, prepared it, and shared it with the rest of us.