Writings of Henry David Thoreau - Cape Cod

Thoreau's compelling account of Cape Cod is here presented in the complete and definitive text. His trips to the Cape, he wrote, were intended to afford "a better view than I had yet had of the ocean." In the plants, animals, topography, weather, people, and human works of Massachusetts' long projection into the Atlantic, he finds "another world." Encounters with the ocean dominate the book, from the fatal shipwreck of the opening episode to the late reflections on the Pilgrims' Cape Cod landing and reconnaissance. Along the way, Thoreau relates the experiences of fishermen and oystermen, farmers and salvagers, lighthouse-keepers and ship-captains, as well as his own intense confrontations with the sea as he travels the land's outermost margins. Chronicles of exploration, settlement, and survival on the Cape lead Thoreau to reconceive the history of New England and to recognize the parochialism of history itself.

About the author

Joseph J. Moldenhauer is Mody C. Boatright Regents Professor of English at the University of Texas.

Summary

Presents Henry David Thoreau's account of Cape Cod. This title focuses on his encounters with the ocean, from the fatal shipwreck of the opening episode to the late reflections on the Pilgrims' Cape Cod landing and reconnaissance. It relates the experiences of fishermen and oystermen, farmers and salvagers, lighthouse-keepers and ship-captains.

Additional text

"Cape Cod is Thoreau's sunniest, happiest book. It bubbles over with jokes, puns, tall tales, and genial good humor. . . . Unquestionably the best book that has ever been written about Cape Cod, and it is the model to which all new books about the Cape are still compared."---Walter Harding, The Days of Henry Thoreau

Product details

• Authors: Henry D. Thoreau
• Assisted by: Carl F. Hovde (Editor), Hovde Carl F. (Editor), William L. Howarth (Editor), Howarth William L. (Editor), Joseph J. Moldenhauer (Editor), Moldenhauer Joseph J. (Editor), Edwin Moser (Editor), Kevin P. Van Anglen (Editor), Elizabeth Witherell (Editor), Elizabeth H. Witherell (Editor), Elizabeth Hall Witherell (Editor), Witherell Elizabeth Hall (Editor)
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 21.11.1988
• EAN: 9780691065328
• ISBN: 978-0-691-06532-8
• No. of pages: 452
• Series: Writings of Henry D. Thoreau
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Essays, feuilletons, literary criticism, interviews; Travel > Travel guides > North and Central America; USA, NATURE / General, Prose: non-fiction, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / General, natural history, American English, United States of America, USA, Biography and non-fiction prose, Nature and the natural world: general interest