Introduction
In this essay, we discuss Thoreau’s revisions to the chapter titled “Higher Laws” in Walden as published in 1854. For evidence, we draw on the manuscript of Walden in the Huntington Library, HM 924.
We focus in particular on the digitized manuscript images in the gallery below, which are all part of the first draft of the book. Clicking on any of these images will open it in a zoomable viewer.
Throughout the essay, we display excerpts from the manuscript images. Clicking on an excerpt will open a larger view of it. Clicking on the associated thumbnail in the right margin will open a zoomable image of the entire manuscript page, making it possible to see the excerpt in context and explore the page.
Here’s an example.
Detail: Top of HM 924, 1:191. “133” in Thoreau’s hand.
View item page
HM 924 Volume 1, p. 191
Readers interested in searching the entirety of HM 924 should consult our Manuscript Search Tool on the Digital Thoreau website.
The manuscript of Walden passed through a number of hands before it came to the Huntington in 1918. Thoreau admirer Franklin Benjamin Sanborn had access to it in the early 20th century and marked it up in preparation for issuing his own two-volume edition of Walden (Boston: The Bibliophile Society, 1909). On the manuscript pages discussed in this essay, page numbers in the left, right, and top left margins, and the notations “Much rewritten” and “(Much rewritten)” in the top margins of two pages, are in Sanborn’s hand.
Page numbers in the upper right corner of recto pages are Thoreau’s. Surviving leaves of the “Economy” portion of the first draft bear a mostly continuous run of odd numbers between “3” and “51”; the last recto is numbered “137.” In the rest of the first draft, leaves bear Thoreau’s odd numbers between “1” and “235,” with more frequent gaps in the sequence; a few pages have two numbers, suggesting that Thoreau rearranged leaves within his manuscript during the drafting process. Discontinuities in Thoreau’s numbering, together with gaps in the text, constitute evidence that some leaves are missing from the first draft.
