Thoreau in Love

In 1843, a repressive puritanism still hangs over Concord, Massachusetts, and Henry Thoreau, twenty-five years old, wants out. When his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, gives him an opportunity to move to New York City, the lively center of the growing nation, Henry leaves Concord with no thought of ever returning.

In his journals, the 250-some pages about his trip to New York have been ripped out, the only substantial number of pages missing from the forty-seven journal volumes. What was so sca...