Henry David Thoreau's account of two years and two months living in a house he built himself at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts: eighteen chapters of cost accounting, nature writing and arguments about how to live.
Worth reading in pieces. The best chapters are sharp, funny and full of close observation, but the long first chapter drags and the tone can be superior. Three and a half out of five (draft).
Every guide comes as a video and a full written article. Pick the one you need: the review is spoiler-free, the ending explained is not.
A Walden summary by Henry David Thoreau: the eighteen chapters in plain English, five key ideas, the cost of his house and the depth of the pond. No spoilers, because there is no plot.
Is the Walden book worth reading? An honest review of Henry David Thoreau's Walden: what works, what drags, how hard it is, where to start and who it is for. No spoilers.
Walden is Henry David Thoreau’s first-person account of living for two years and two months in a house he built himself on the shore of Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts. We used the Project Gutenberg ebook, which also contains his essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. This page covers Walden only.
Below you’ll find a chapter-by-chapter summary and five key ideas, a review of who should read it, and numbers from the text, such as the cost of his house and the depth of the pond. There is no plot, so there are no spoilers.
Worth reading in pieces. The best chapters are sharp, funny and full of close observation, but the long first chapter drags and the tone can be superior. Three and a half out of five (draft). Read it if: you like essays that argue with the way you live; you enjoy close nature writing; you want to see where famous lines about living deliberately come from. Skip it if: you want a story or a plot; long nineteenth-century sentences wear you out; being lectured makes you dig in. Walden Book Review →
A Walden summary by Henry David Thoreau: the eighteen chapters in plain English, five key ideas, the cost of his house and the depth of the pond. No spoilers, because there is no plot. Walden Summary: Thoreau's Key Ideas, Chapter by Chapter →
Walden is Thoreau's first-person account of living for two years and two months in a house he built himself at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. It mixes cost accounting, nature writing and arguments about how to live. There is no plot.
By the book's own account, two years and two months. He began spending nights there on the Fourth of July, 1845, and left on September 6, 1847.
Eighteen, from Economy to the Conclusion. By our count they run about 106,000 words, and Economy alone is almost a quarter of that.
He lists the materials at $28.12 and a half cents, for a house ten feet wide and fifteen feet long. He says he did all the work himself.
The Project Gutenberg ebook titled Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience. This site covers Walden only.
