Henry David Thoreau was a leading figure in the American Transcendentalist movement and the era of US literary emergence, an intellectual with worldwide influence as essayist, social thinker, naturalist-environmentalist, and sage. Thoreau's Walden, an autobiographical narrative of his two-year sojourn in a self-built lakeside cabin, is one of the most widely studied works of American literature. It has generated scores of literary imitations and experiments in back-to-basics living. Thoreau's essay, "Civil Disobedience," is a classic of American political activism and a model for nonviolent reform movements. Thoreau also stands as an icon of modern American environmentalism, the father of American nature writing, a forerunner of modern ecology, and a harbinger of freelance spirituality.

Thoreau is also a controversial figure. He was an advocate for individual self-sufficiency who never broke away from home, a self-professed mystic now also acclaimed as a pioneer natural and applied scientist, and a seminal theorist of nonviolent protest who defended the most notorious guerrilla fighter of his day. All told, he remains a rather enigmatic figure both despite and because we know so much about him. Lawrence Buell gives due consideration to all these aspects of Thoreau's art and thought, framing key issues and complexities in historical and literary context.