Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. Henry David Thoreau manuscripts, 1837-1970: Guide.

Houghton Library, Harvard College Library

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Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 USA

Last updated 2012 February 7

Descriptive Summary

Repository: Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University
Location: b
Call No.: MS Am 278.5
Call No.: MS Am 278.5.5
Call No.: MS Am 278.5.10
Call No.: MS Am 278.5.15
Call No.: MS Am 278.5.20
Call No.: MS Am 278.5.25
Creator: Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862.
Title: Henry David Thoreau manuscripts,
Date(s): 1837-1970.
Quantity: 1 box, 6 volumes (1.25 linear ft.)
Language of materials: Collection materials are in English.
Abstract: Manuscripts of American essayist, poet and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau.

Acquisition Information:

Materials received at various times from various sources. See items for full acquistion information.

Access Restrictions:

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material. Collection is open for research.

Preferred Citation for Publication:

Henry David Thoreau Manuscripts, 1837-1970 (MS Am 278.5-278.25). Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Images linked to this finding aid are intended for public access and educational use. This material is owned and/or held by the Houghton Library, and is provided solely for the purpose of teaching or individual research. Any other use, including commercial reuse, mounting on other systems, or other forms of redistribution requires the permission of the curator.

Historical Note

Henry David Thoreau was an American essayist, poet, naturalist, and philosopher of the New England Transcendentalist movement. He was graduate of Harvard College with the Class of 1837.

Arrangement

Organized in call number order.

Scope and Content

Includes drafts, fragments, and some complete autograph manuscripts for poems, essays, journals, a lecture, and notes. Includes Thoreau's first published piece, Obituary for Miss Anna Jones, fragments of Walden and Civil disobedience, two essays he wrote while a student at Harvard College, his translation of Prometheus Bound, and a 1970 transcription of his fragmentary journals of the 1840s among others. Also includes a journal fragment by his sister, Sophia E. Thoreau.

Bibliography

For additional information and accurate texts of Thoreau's complete works, see The writings of Henry D. Thoreau.

Container List

bMS Am 278.5 [Manuscript fragments mainly from journals]; [various places, various dates]. 45f.(90p.) and 333s.(660p.)
Acquisition Information: Gift of William Augustus White; received: 1919 Nov. 28.
Original shelf-list cataloging note states: "Placed in Mrs. [Flora Virginia Milner] Livingston's hand, Nov. 1919 for collating and arranging. . . "

Processing Information: The following text, written by the Houghton Manuscript Dept. staff, was placed in the box with these manuscripts, dated 1955 Nov. 21, titled: "Notes on Thoreau Papers."
These MSS. were presented to Harvard in 1919 by William Augustus White (class of 1863). White's source is not recorded, but he is known to have had them as early as 1904.

What order they were in originally is not known. The old shelf-list [from the Harvard College Library Treasure Room] records that they were immediately turned over to Mrs. Flora V. Livingston to identify and arrange [Livingston was a Harvard College librarian]. There is no way of telling how much of the present order results from her work, for a least two subsequent staff members and numerous readers have handled the papers and perhaps re-arranged them.

The present order is that which obtained by November 1955, except that a few small groups have been moved from folders 1 and 2 to later folders where they really belong; these are marked in every case so they may be traced if necessary. Although this order is not ideal, it is preserved because it is familiar to recent users of the papers and is recorded by Alexander Kern in the Fall, 1955 Thoreau Society Bulletin, [Bulletin 53; see curatorial file]. Within the 22 folders smaller groups of papers were clipped together with identifying notes by various persons. Smaller folders have been substituted for paperclips to keep the groups separate. Scholars' notes have been retained in place, and the papers have been numbered and lettered to preserve their order. The encircled pencil letters and numbers, appearing usually in the lower left corner of the sheets, were added for this purpose by the library staff.

Readers are asked not to disturb this order even if they disagree with it, but instead to contact the Public Service librarians to obtain a comment form which can be filled out and passed on to the Manuscript Department for evaluation. Earlier reader's comments are (at this date 2004 Sept.) still housed in these folders.
- (1) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Fragments of manuscripts] : AMs, undated. 4 pieces in 1 folder.
  NOTE: Other fragments formerly in folder (1) have been distributed among later folders to which they properly belong.
- (2) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Fragments of manuscripts] : AMs, undated. 9 pieces in 1 folder.
- (3) Thoreau, Sophia E. [Journal] : AMs fragments, mostly 1840. 7 pieces in 1 folder.
  One sheet marked: July 22, 1840; and one May 11th.
  
  Sophia was the sister (1819-1876) of Henry David Thoreau.
- (3a) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Obituary for Miss Anna Jones] : AMs draft; [no place, 1837]. 1s.(2p.) in 1 folder.
  Pencilled draft of Thoreau's first published piece that appeared in Yeoman's Gazette on Nov. 25, 1837. See 1970 letter of reader Thomas William Blanding item (22) below.
  - Recto Click for color digital image.
  - Verso Click for color digital image.
- (4) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Journal, 1842-1843] : AMs fragments, 1842-1843. 22 pieces in 1 folder.
  17 of these fragments are described in 1970 letter from reader Thomas William Blanding in item (22) below.
- (5) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Introduction to a lecture] : AMs, undated. 1 piece in 1 folder.
  See Journal, VI, p.486-487.
- (6) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. Journal : AMs fragments, undated. 12 pieces in 1 folder.
- (7) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Journal indices of natural phenomena] : AMs, undated. 6 pieces in 1 folder.
- (8) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Notes for The Maine Woods or A Yankee in Canada] : AMs, undated. 2 piece in 1 folder.
- (9) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Wild apples] : AMs, undated. 20 pieces in 1 folder.
  Incomplete manuscript.
- (10) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [A walk to Wachusett] AMs, undated. 4 pieces in 1 folder.
  Earlier incomplete version.
- (11) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Herald of freedom] : AMs fragment, undated. 2 pieces in 1 folder.
  Scrap on Rogers.
- (12) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [A Yankee in Canada] : AMs fragments, undated. 2 pieces in 1 folder.
- (12a) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. The transmigrations of the seven Brahmans : AMs, undated. 5 pieces in 1 folder.
- (13) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Autumnal tints] AMs, undated. 43 pieces in 1 folder.
- (14) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Civil disobedience] : AMs fragment drafts and scraps, undated. 15 pieces in 1 folder.
- (15) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers] : AMS fragments, undated. 73 pieces in 1 folder.
  Fragments mainly of journals torn up for "A week . . ."
- (16) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Walden] : AMs fragments, undated. 4 pieces in 1 folder.
  Fragments of journals.
- (17) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [The Maine woods] : AMs fragments, undated. 23 pieces in 1 folder.
- (18) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Life without principle] : AMs, undated. 1 folder.
  Two early drafts. One is stitched: 45f.(90p.); and the other is 11 fragment pieces.
- (19) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Sir Walter Raleigh] : AMs, undated. 1 piece in 1 folder.
- (20) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Life without principle] : AMs fragments, undated. 25 pieces in 1 folder.
  Draft.
- (21) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Walking] : AMs, undated. 43 pieces in 1 folder.
  Complete manuscript. Also includes scraps.
- (22) [Index and general notes for Thoreau fragments]. 1 folder.
  Includes miscellaneous papers about the fragments, including: letter and list from Thomas Blanding to William Bond, 1970 Apr. 19; Mss Dept. "Notes on the Thoreau Papers" 1955 Nov. 21; Thoreau Society Bulletin Fall 1955; and Bulletin of the New York Public Library, May 1955.

MS Am 278.5.5 Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Essays written while a student at Harvard College] : AMssS, [Cambridge, 183-?]. 8f.(16p.) in 1v.
2 essays. The essays are on a passage in Paradise Lost, and on the sublimity of death as a theme for literature.

Acquisition Information: Gift of H.A. DeWitt, F.I. Carpenter, and A.A. Sprague of Chicago; received: 1924 Nov. 4.

MS Am 278.5.10 Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. Friendship : AMs (unsigned) poem, [no place, undated]. 2f. (4p.) in 1v.
Attested by Sophia Thoreau.

Acquisition Information: Bequest of Mrs. James Thomas Fields; received: 1916 Oct. 17.

MS Am 278.5.15 Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. Prometheus bound by Aeschylus : AMs (unsigned) translation, [no place, ca. 1843]. 11s.(44p.) in 1v.
Includes numerous AMs alterations in pencil, which more nearly correspond to the published text.

Full blue morocco gilt in cloth case.

Translation published in 1843.

Acquisition Information: *64M-132
Manuscript purchased with the Amy Lowell fund from Mr. J. W. Hambuechen, Lloyd Neck, Huntington, New York; received: 1965 Jan. 12.
- Click for color digital images.

MS Am 278.5.20 Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. Poems and notes : AMss (unsigned). 1v.
Acquisition Information: *64M-168
Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Donald F. Hyde; received: 1965 27 Feb.

Purchased from Robert Hopewell, East Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.
- (1) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. Short flights, Expectation, Love's farewell, Inspiration : AMs (unsigned) poems; [n.p., n.d.]. 1s.(2p.)
  Published by Carl Bode, Collected Poems of Henry David Thoreau, 1943.
  Contents:
  - Better wait; Bode, p.186.
  - Where I have been; Bode, p.186.
  - Who sleeps by day...; Bode, p.84.
  - The deeds of king...; Bode, p.185.
  - Wait not till I...; Bode, p.185.
  - Greater is the depth...; Bode, p.185.
  - My life hath been...; Bode, p.85.
  - Expectation; Bode, p.188.
  - Love's farewell; Bode, p.118.
  - Inspiration; Bode, p.231. 7th strophe only.
- (2) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. General phenomena for November . . . : A.MS (unsigned); [n.p., n.d.]. 2s.(4p.)
  Notes for the Journals.
- (3) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. Fishes, shell-fish, leeches etc. . . . : AMs (unsigned); [n.p., n.d.]. 1s.(4p.)
  Notes for the Journals.
- (4) Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [Unidentified essay] : AMs (unsigned) fragment; [n.p., n.d.]. 1s.(2p.)

MS Am 278.5.25 Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862. [The text of Thoreau's fragmentary journals of the 1840s] : Ts transcript (mimeograph); Marlboro, Vermont, 1870 May 12. 165s.(166p.)
Transcribed and edited by Thomas William Blanding. Written as Blanding's undergraduate B.A. honors thesis at Marlboro College, 1970.

Acquisition Information: *70M-16
Gift of Thomas W. Blanding, Thoreau Lyceum, 156 Belknap Street, Concord, Mass. 01742; received: 1970 Aug. 20.

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