Walden
Walden; or, Life in the Woods
EditionOriginal English text, 1854 first edition, with “Civil Disobedience”
Two years in a cabin he built himself by a pond in Concord, and what Thoreau learned about how much a life really needs.
Also in the library: the complete Korean translation.
Anyone can read the first chapter. Join free to read to the end and download EPUB and PDF.
DRM-free files. Translation CC BY-NC 4.0; the original work is in the public domain.
About the book
In July 1845 Henry David Thoreau moved into a one-room house he had built on the shore of Walden Pond and lived there for two years and two months, earning his living by the labor of his hands. Walden is his account of that experiment: what a house, food, and clothing really cost, what reading and solitude are for, and what the pond looks like through every season, from the bean-field in summer to the ice breaking up in spring.
This is the complete text of the first edition of 1854, with Thoreau’s own accounts set as tables. As in our Korean edition, it is followed by his essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” written after a night in the Concord jail for refusing to pay a poll tax.
Highlights
- The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
- If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Contents
Anyone can read up to the first chapter. Chapters with a lock are open to free members.
Colophon
Original English text, 1854 first edition, with “Civil Disobedience”. Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.Full colophon
Walden · or, Life in the Woods
Author · Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
First publication · 9 August 1854, Ticknor and Fields, Boston, as Walden; or, Life in the Woods. “Civil Disobedience” first appeared in 1849 as “Resistance to Civil Government.”
Source text · A public-domain digital transcription of Walden (text of the first edition, 1854) and of “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” (text as collected after the author’s death, 1866).
Extent · Complete and unabridged · eighteen chapters, with “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” as an appendix · about 116,000 words
Copyright · The author died in 1862; the work is in the public domain worldwide.
This edition · The original English text, edited for Ether Library. The text itself is in the public domain. Ether Library’s editor’s note, this colophon, and the cover design are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Edition · English edition 1.0 · October 2026
Typography · Set in Lora (SIL Open Font License 1.1). Cover painting and design by Ether Library.
Text in the public domain · Front and back matter CC BY-NC 4.0
Ether Library · No. 0022