Cape Cod - Softcover

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, and philosopher, who is best known for his works Waldena treatise about living in concert with the natural worldand Civil Disobedience, in which he espoused the need to morally resist the actions of an unjust state. Thoreau s work heavily reflects the ideologies of the American transcendentalists, and he has long been considered a leading figure in the movement along with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and, at first, Nathaniel Hawthorne (who changed his views later in life). In addition to his writing, which totaled more than twenty volumes, Thoreau was an active abolitionist, and lectured regularly against the Fugitive Slave Law. Thoreau died in 1862, and is buried along with Louisa May Alcott, Ellery Channing, and other notable Americans in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

This relatively minor work by Thoreau illustrates the qualities that define his greatest works: his clarity and ease of style, and his concreteness as a naturalist and observer of nature and society. Compiled from magazine articles published in the 1850s after his death, these chapters detail several short trips Thoreau made to "the bare and bended arm of Massachusetts" between 1849 and 1855. Patrick Cullen's unforced and straightforward delivery treats the text as journalism and travelogue, rather than lyrical prose, and thus conveys both Thoreau's strengths as a reporter and the secret of handling this author successfully in the audio format. In addition to its literary merit, this book is also an effective evocation of Cape Cod a century and a half ago, when the old ways were being both lost and preserved against the encroachments of civilization, technology, and inexorable modernity. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine