Autograph Manuscript leaf from working draft of WALDEN, chapter III, “OF READING” [inserted in:] The Writings in Twenty Volumes, Manuscript Edition

[N.p., Concord, 1853. 2 pages on a single sheet, inlaid and folded. 8vo. Fine. Some spines of set faintly toned. 2 pages on a single sheet, inlaid and folded. 8vo. The deluxe binding of the 1906 Houghton Mifflin Manuscript Edition in three quarter dark green levant gilt, here with a leaf from a resonant passage in Thoreau’s Walden, from a draft of Chapter III, “Of Reading” (here in an undetermined state varying slightly from the final published text, where it appears as pp. 114-6). The manuscript is in ink, with additions in pencil. Shanley notes that the "first draft" manuscript is missing three pages at this chapter and he identifies no other manuscript (truncated) source for the passage.
Thoreau laments the absolute scarcity of readers, noting that even in Concord, there is little effort made to read the great books of English literature, and “as for the recorded wisdom of mankind – the ancient classics … — there are the feeblest efforts any where made … Or suppose he comes from reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original — whose praises are familiar even to the so-called illiterate — He will find nobody at all to speak to but must keep silence about it.” Thoreau would rework and add to these paragraphs during an extraordinary process of revision, expansion, and refinement, but his point is manifest: “any man will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar, but here are golden words which the wisest men of antiquity” which few stir themselves to learn.
Thoreau’s writings are deeply rooted in his observation of the natural world and the people among whom he lived; they are even more deeply rooted in his explorations of the knowledge of earlier ages through books.
A SUPERB THOREAU MANUSCRIPT, THE ONLY SURVIVING DRAFT OF THIS PASSAGE. For the Manuscript Edition: Borst B3; BAL 20145; for Thoreau’s composition process, see Shanley, The Making of Walden (1957), pp. 71, 150, etc (Inventory #: 323290)