Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on July 12, and died there of tuberculosis on May 6, two months shy of his forty-fifth birthday. He is best known as the author of Walden (1854), an account of the two years (1845–1847) he spent living in a cabin he built on the shores of Walden Pond (outside Concord), and "Civil Disobedience" (originally delivered as a lecture entitled "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government"), a polemical political essay describing the events surrounding, reasons for, and consequences of his arrest for nonpayment of taxes.

Henry David Thoreau, 1817–1862. Thoreau was an American writer, a dissenter, and, after Emerson, the outstanding transcendentalist. He is best known for his classic book, Walden. (The Library of Congress.)

Thoreau is often portrayed as an anti-modern romantic, placing him in strong opposition to the modernizing forces of science and technology...