Walden

Thoreau lived in his cabin near Walden Pond for two years, two months, and two days, from July 4, 1845 to September 6, 1847. The cabin was located on land owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Concord, Massachusetts.

Not at all—the pond was less than two miles from Concord's town center, and Thoreau frequently walked into town to visit friends, have dinner, and even have his laundry done by his family. This proximity is one of the central ironies that critics have noted about 'Walden': Thoreau's 'solitude' was always within easy reach of civilization.

In his own words from the book's second chapter, Thoreau went 'to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.' He also used the time to write his first book, 'A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,' which recounted a boat trip with his late brother John.

Thoreau's famous essay 'Civil Disobedience' (originally 'Resistance to Civil Government') was first delivered as a lecture at the Concord Lyceum in January 1848, shortly after his return from Walden Pond, and published in 1849. The essay, which argues for refusal to cooperate with unjust government, grew out of the night Thoreau spent in Concord jail in 1846 for refusing to pay his poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican-American War—an event that occurred during his Walden period.