Thoreau as a free-lance journalist

Abstract

That the author of Walden and "Civil Disobedience" also wrote for newspapers and magazines tends to be lost on Henry David Thoreau's increasing readership. Yet he referred to himself as a reporter to the gazettes and his neighbors; he free-lanced articles to periodicals for pay; and he utilized (unpaid) literary agents. He worked endlessly at perfecting his reportorial skills and the art of writing. He recorded daily in a journal for twenty-four years what he learned and thought. The usefulness to modern writers of his conclusions may equal the relevance and appeal to general readers of his genius for joyful, self-reliant living in harmony with nature. And an examination of him as a free-lance writer from the viewpoint of modern journalism may broaden our understanding of this enigmatic genius and his place in literary history. Growing up in Concord, Massachusetts, Thoreau made its surrounding woods, fields, and eaters his textbook of nature, his microcosm of the universe, and one of his two chosen reporting beats. The other beat was human nature, and he searched within himself as Representative Man for ultimate truths. In his essays, he reported the findings that he considered most newsworthy. The reports often concerned thoughts rather than events, for he considered thoughts the epochs of life, and he found the imagined more real than the actual. His education included four years at Harvard, only fifteen miles from his beloved Concord, to which he returned for good..