HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817 -1862)

This magnificent manuscript was written in New York in 1843, while Thoreau was staying with Emerson's brother, submitted to Emerson and published later that year in The Dial. The essay was revised by Thoreau during composition and edited for publication by Emerson, who made a few substantive changes and numerous deletions. The manuscript, which varies significantly from the published text, was apparently used as printer's copy for The Dial, and all the revisions and deletions were observed.

Thoreau's manuscript originally consisted of 43 pages, of which the first 16 pages and pages 19-20 do not survive. Present here are pages 17-18, 21-24 and 29-40. The Pierpont Morgan Library and the Houghton Library each have one of the missing leaves, and two addi- tional leaves survive in private collections. "A Winter Walk," which has been called Thoreau's "first fully mature piece of writ- ing," contains some of his earliest serious writing on nature, with allusions to both Walden Pond and the Concord River. It was first published in book form in Excursions in 1863.