A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Henry D. Thoreau's classic A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is published now as a paperback edition and includes an introduction by noted writer John McPhee. This work -- unusual for its symbolism and structure, its criticism of Christian institutions, and its many-layered storytelling -- was Thoreau's first published book.

In the late summer of 1839, Thoreau and his older brother John made a two-week boat-and-hiking trip from Concord, Massachusetts, to the White Mountains of New ...