James Cummins Bookseller

‘the uncommon school we want’

Autograph Manuscript leaf from working draft of WALDEN, the end of chapter III, “OF READING” [inserted in:] The Writings in Twenty Volumes, Manuscript Edition.

Thoreau, Henry David.

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906.

Price: $50,000.00

---

About the item

The MANUSCRIPT EDITION, No. 271 of 600 sets with an inserted leaf of autograph manuscript. 2 pages on a single sheet, inlaid and folded; Illustrated with photogravure plates after photos taken from nature by H. W. Gleason. 20 vols. 8vo. Original tan cloth, printed spine label. Some toning to cloth. Very good plus. For the Manuscript Edition: BAL 20145. Allen p. 52; Borst B3; for Thoreau’s composition process, see Shanley, The Making of Walden (1957), pp. 71, 150, etc.

Item #338075

A bold, scrawling manuscript where Thoreau’s pen can barely keep pace with his thought. This is likely from an early draft manuscript of Walden, for there are extensive pencil annotations, words struck through, and sections blocked into numbered sections to be reordered.

Thoreau speaks directly about the importance of education and the vistas it opens. The possibilities for education and self-improvement available to the small villages of prosperous New England are far greater than the resources of European noblemen: “Instead of noblemen – let us have noble villages of men!”.