In this week's blog post, I share the details of an early edition of Thoreau's Walden published by the Burt Company, examining the "story" told by both its title page and frontispiece.
A. L. Burt Company’s Walden
Transcendentalism and the Problem of Misquotation
Above one of the classroom doors in my high school, there’s a well-known quote credited to Thoreau that so many of us have heard over the years: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagine.” No doubt, it’s a beautiful sentiment. And yet every time I pass that classroom, I …
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Searching Webster’s for the Modern Diet
This week's post marks number 30 since I started The White Whale, and it's a guest writer, Greg Back, who is an avid writer and teacher. He's also my cousin-in-law. In fact, we were both married in the same church on Spring Hill in Wyalusing. I hope you enjoy his playful look at language and the modern diet.
Some New Waders and a Stringer Full of Fish Books
There’s just something about wading into a cold stream with a fly rod. After many years away, I’d almost forgotten the feeling. Last spring, however, I started reading Vermont River by W. D. Wetherell. It’s a memoir about fly-fishing, a kind of love story about a year in the life of a devout fishermen. It …
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Sizing Up Walt Whitman & Friends
It’s about this time that I’m usually wrapping up my teaching of American Romanticism. We’ve made it through Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and we’re just about done with my favorite, Henry David Thoreau. Over the years, I’ve made deletions and additions to the scope and sequence, hoping …
