A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Henry David Thoreau

Core works and topics Civil Disobedience Herald of Freedom The Last Days of John Brown Life Without Principle Paradise (to be) Regained A Plea for Captain John Brown Reform and the Reformers Remarks After the Hanging of John Brown The Service Sir Walter Raleigh Slavery in Massachusetts Thomas Carlyle and His Works Walden A Walk to Wachusett A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers Wendell Phillips Before the Concord Lyceum The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau Thoreau Society
Related topics Abolitionism Anarchism Anarchism in the United States Civil disobedience Concord, Massachusetts Conscientious objection Direct action Ecology Environmentalism History of tax resistance Individualist anarchism John Brown Lyceum movement Nonviolent resistance Ralph Waldo Emerson Simple living Tax resistance Tax resisters Transcendentalism The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail Walden Pond

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) is a book by Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862). It is ostensibly the narrative of a boat trip from Concord, Massachusetts to Concord, New Hampshire, and back, that Thoreau took with his brother John in 1839. John died of tetanus in 1842 and Thoreau wrote the book, in part, as a tribute to his memory.^[1]

Background

The book's first draft was completed while Thoreau was living at Walden Pond (1845-47). He was unable to find a publisher, however, and therefore had it published at his own expense.^[1] Few copies sold and he was left with several hundred extras and went into debt. A slightly revised version of A Week, based on corrections Thoreau had made himself, was published in 1868, six years after his death.

Content

While the book may appear to be a travel journal, broken up into chapters for each day, this is deceptive. The actual trip took two weeks and while given passages are a literal description of the journey — from Concord, Massachusetts, down the Concord River to the Middlesex Canal, to the Merrimack River, up to Concord, New Hampshire, and back — much of the text is in the form of digressions by the Harvard-educated author on diverse topics such as religion, poetry, and history. Thoreau relates these topics to his own life experiences, often in the context of the rapid changes taking place in his native New England during the Industrial Revolution, changes that Thoreau often laments.

References

1 2 "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers". Princeton University Press. Retrieved 3 February 2011.

External links

Downloadable full text - Project Gutenberg

Henry David Thoreau

Speeches	Remarks After the Hanging of John Brown (1859)

Essays	"The Service" (1840) "A Walk to Wachusett" (1842) "Paradise (to be) Regained" (1843) "Sir Walter Raleigh" (1844) "Herald of Freedom" (1844) "Wendell Phillips Before the Concord Lyceum" (1845) "Reform and the Reformers" (1846–48) "Thomas Carlyle and His Works" (1847) "Resistance to Civil Government" ("Civil Disobedience") (1849) "Slavery in Massachusetts" (1854) "A Plea for Captain John Brown" (1859) "The Last Days of John Brown" (1860) "Walking" (1861) "Life Without Principle" (1863) Excursions anthology (1863)

Books	A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) Walden (1854)

Related	Thoreau Society The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau Wheeler-Minot Farmhouse Concord Museum Walden Pond Walden Woods Project The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail (1969 play)

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