Thoreau’s last years have been the subject of debate for decades, but only recently have scholars and critics begun to appreciate the posthumous publications, unfinished manuscripts, and Journal entries that occupied the writer after Walden (1854). Until now, no critical reader has delved deeply enough into botany to see how Thoreau’s plant studies impact his thinking and writing. Thoreau’s Botany moves beyond general literary appreciation for the botanical works to apply Thoreau’s extensive studies of botany—from 1850 to his death in 1862—to readings of his published and unpublished works in fresh, interdisciplinary ways. Bringing together critical plant studies, ecocriticism, and environmental humanities, James Perrin Warren argues that Thoreau’s botanical excursions establish a meeting ground of science and the humanities that is only now ready to be recognized by readers of American literature and environmental literature.
Table of Content
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: Thoreau’s Botanical Turn
1. The Two Botanical Excursions of The Maine Woods
2. Cape Cod and the Seven Excursions
3. Walden as Botanical Excursion
4. Thoreau’s Kalendar: Reading the Journal through Plants
5. The Dispersion of Seeds and the Writer’s Faithful Record
6. Wild Fruits and Transformative Perceptions
Epilogue: Walking in the Anthropocene
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
James Perrin Warren is the S. Blount Mason Jr. Professor of English Emeritus at Washington and Lee University and the author of Other Country: Barry Lopez and the Community of Artists.
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