Letters to a Spiritual Seeker

Front Cover
W. W. Norton & Company, 2004 - Literary Collections - 266 pages
The writing of Henry David Thoreau is as full of life today as it was when he published Walden one hundred years ago. In seeking to understand nature, Thoreau sought to "lead a fresh, simple life with God." In 1848 a seeker named Harrison Blake, yearning for a spiritual life of his own, asked the then-fledgling writer for guidance. The fifty letters that ensued, collected here for the first time in their own volume by Thoreau specialist Bradley P. Dean, are by turns earnest, oracular, witty, playful, practical— and deeply insightful and inspiring, as one would expect from America's best prose stylist and great moral philosopher.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
11
A Note on the Texts
27
March 1848 from Blake
33
May 2 1848
40
August 10 1849
46
April 3 1850
52
Letter Nine August 9 1850
59
Letter Eleven September 1852
67
Letter Fourteen December 19 and 22 1853
93
Letter Seventeen September 21 1854
107
Letter Twentythree July 8 1855
121
Letter Twentyeight May 21 1856
134
Letter Thirtytwo February 6 1857
147
Letter Thirtyfour June 6 1857
150
Letter Forty July 1 1858
163
Letter Fortyfive October 31 1859
177

Letter Eleven Enclosure 2
76
Letter Thirteen April 10 1853
89
Letter Fortynine December 2 1860
192
Acknowledgments
263

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2004)

Bradley P. Dean, an independent scholar living in West Peterborough, New Hampshire, has written extensively on Thoreau's life and writings, and has edited two of Thoreau's previously unpublished booklength manuscripts.

Bibliographic information