PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT Two only of Thoreau's books were published during his lifetime, although a number of the papers afterward collected into volumes were printed by him in magazines. The volumes succeeding A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and Walden were composed of papers grouped according to convenience at the time. Later, Mr. H. G. O. Blake drew from Thoreau's manuscript journals the four volumes corresponding to the seasons. With the publication of Autumn the entire series of Thoreau's works acquires a certain completeness, and the opportunity therefore arises for a new and uniform edition of his writings on the same general plan as that followed with the works of Longfellow, Hawthorne, Lowell, Emerson, Whittier, and Holmes. The present edition contains not only all that has heretofore been published in the volumes under Thoreau's name, but papers also not heretofore included. Since it has been necessary to make the older books anew, it has been thought advisable to bring the groups into better har vi PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT mony. A Yankee in Canada, therefore, has been grouped under the head of Excursions, and the miscellaneous papers, new and old, have been brought into one volume, to which also Mr. Emerson's biographical sketch is prefixed. Wherever there are interesting facts to be noted regarding the writings they are presented in Introductory Notes. Each volume is provided with a separate index, and a General Index in the tenth volume brings together references to Thoreau's scattered observations. Care has been taken also to verify, whenever it has been possible, the many poetical quotations. Four portraits, each a distinct contribution to a knowledge of Thoreau's appearance, accompany the edition. The origin of each is explained in a prefatory note to the volume containing it. BOSTON: 4 PARK STREET, September, 1893. CONTENTS [The sub-titles under each division are of Thoreau's poems and snatches "Ah, 't is in vain the peaceful din " "Here then an aged shepherd dwelt" "The western wind came lumbering in " "Then idle Time ran gadding by " "I am a parcel of vain strivings tied "All things are current found" The portrait prefacing this volume is from the crayon |