Manuscripts

Henry David Thoreau and family correspondence

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Description: Consists of 25 letters by Henry David Thoreau, dating from 1836 to 1861, chiefly to Daniel Ricketson; 13 letters from Sophia Thoreau to Ricketson, dating from 1861-1876; and 1 letter from John Thoreau to Ricketson, dated 1857.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Production date: 1836-1876
Call number: mssHM 7002-7041
Creator: Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862)(Opens in new tab)
Restrictions: RESTRICTED. Available with curatorial approval. Requires extended retrieval and delivery time.
Associated people: Ricketson, Daniel,

Henry David Thoreau poems

Manuscripts

Manuscript poems by Henry David Thoreau copied in the hand of Thoreau's sister Sophia E. Thoreau. Contents: Haze (page 1a); The Funeral Bell (pages 1a-b); Voyagers Song. 1837 June (page 2a); Change Not (page 2b); A Rural Scene, afternoon in May (page 3a); The Ark (page 4a); Enoch (page 4a); The Prayer (page 4b); "Every little spring flows on …" (page 5a); "My feeble bark has reached the shore…" (Michelangelo) (page 6a). At the top of page 1 there is a penciled note of authentication by F. B. Sanborn. A leaf containing 2 pages of penciled notes about books, in Sophia Thoreau's hand, is laid with the above.

mssHM 13190

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Letters between Henry David Thoreau and Isaac Hecker

Manuscripts

Four letters between Henry David Thoreau and Isaac T. Hecker consisting of: a letter to Thoreau from Hecker, New York, 1844 July 31, A.L.S. 3 pp. (HM 20110); a letter to Thoreau from Hecker, New York, 1844 August 15, A.L.S. 3 pp. (HM 20108); a letter to Hecker from Thoreau, 1844 August 14, A.L.S. 3 pp. (HM 20109); and a letter to Hecker from Thoreau, [1844], A.L.S. 2 pp., with a note by Hecker on the verso (HM 20107).

mssHM 20107-20110

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Henry David Thoreau letter to Ticknor & Fields

Manuscripts

One-page draft (in pencil) of a letter from Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts, to the firm of Ticknor & Fields. Written on the reverse of a letter from L. Johnson & Co. to John Thoreau.

mssHM 209

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College essays of Henry David Thoreau

Manuscripts

Manuscript (holograph, signed) of essays created while Henry David Thoreau was a student at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Contains: Of Keeping a Private Journal, [1835, January 7] (pages 1-3) ; Whether the Cultivation of the Imagination Conduce to the Happiness of the Individual, 1836 September (pages 4-7); [On the variety of energy in men] (pages 8-10); [On the anxieties and delights of a discoverer] (pages 11-13); Explain the Phrases, - A Man of Business a Man of Pleasure, a Man of the World (pages 14-16); [On becoming what others think us to be] (pages 17-18); [On Henry N. Coleridge's book, Introductions to the study of the Greek classic poets], 1836 October 1 (pages 19-26); [On the advantage and disadvantages of foreign influence on American literature], incomplete, 1836 April (pages 29-30).

mssHM 934

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Henry David Thoreau letter to Charles C. Morse

Manuscripts

One-page autograph signed letter from Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts, to Charles C. Morse, in Rochester, New York, written in pencil on the inside of a one-page letter from Morse to Thoreau. In the letter, Thoreau briefly describes his relationship to science and nature.

mssHM 20592

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Henry David Thoreau letter to Louis A. Surette

Manuscripts

Two-page letter from Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts, to Louis A. Surette.

mssHM 26183

Henry David Thoreau and family correspondence

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Henry David Thoreau poems

Letters between Henry David Thoreau and Isaac Hecker

Henry David Thoreau letter to Ticknor & Fields

College essays of Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau letter to Charles C. Morse

Henry David Thoreau letter to Louis A. Surette