A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

by Henry David Thoreau

Overview

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) is a book by American writer Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). It recounts his experience on a boat trip with his brother on the Concord River and Merrimack River.

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers 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. 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 - down the Concord River to the Middlesex Canal, to the Merrimack River, 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.

It received only two reviews. The Athenæum described it as one of the "worst offshoots of Carlyle and Emerson." The Westminster Review also took issue with its style, though in all felt that "the book is an agreeable book." Thoreau had sent a copy to James Anthony Froude, who wrote back, "In your book . . . I see hope for the coming world."

An 1853 short story by Herman Melville, "Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!", is interpreted as a satire of Thoreau's book.

The French composer Robert Piéchaud (born 1969) wrote The River (2016), a wind quintet which freely follows Thoreau's work. An additional voice part is found in the last movement, setting All Things Are Current Found, the last poem of the book.

John McPhee recreated Thoreau's journey in a canoe starting August 31, 2003, and wrote about it in "Paddling After Henry David Thoreau". (wikipedia.org)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798888306215
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	06/29/2023
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	708,040
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1817. He graduated from Harvard in 1837, the same year he began his lifelong Journal. Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau became a key member of the Transcendentalist movement that included Margaret Fuller and Bronson Alcott. The Transcendentalists' faith in nature was tested by Thoreau between 1845 and 1847 when he lived for twenty-six months in a homemade hut at Walden Pond. While living at Walden, Thoreau worked on the two books published during his lifetime: Walden (1854) and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). Several of his other works, including The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, and Excursions, were published posthumously. Thoreau died in Concord, at the age of forty-four, in 1862.

Date of Birth:

July 12, 1817

Date of Death:

May 6, 1862

Place of Birth:

Concord, Massachusetts

Place of Death:

Concord, Massachusetts

Education:

Concord Academy, 1828-33); Harvard University, 1837

Table of Contents

	Introduction	ix
	Concord River	5
	Saturday	15
	Sunday	43
	Monday	117
	Tuesday	179
	Wednesday	235
	Thursday	298
	Friday	334
	Index	395