Amazon.com description: Product Description: The life of a scholar seldom abounds with adventure. His fame is acquired in solitude, and the historian who only views him at a distance, must be content with a dry detail of actions by which he is scarce distinguished from the rest of Mankind. HENRY DAVID THOREAU was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the twelfth of July. 1818. His parents moved to Chelmsford, and shortly afterward to Boston, where he first attended school. 1923. The family returned to Concord, where he was prepared for college. I was fitted, or rather made unfit, for college at Concord Academy and elsewhere, mainly by myself with the countenance of Phineas Allen, Preceptor. Thoreau, Letter to the Ciass Secretary. 1833. Entered Harvard University. One branch more, to use Mr. Quincys words, and you had been turned by entirely. You have barely got in. However, A mans a man for a that. I was in, and did not stop to ask how I got there. Letter to the Class Secretary. 1834. Began keeping a diary. In this year Emerson delivered his first lecture in Concord. I believe I never thanked you for your lectures, one and all, which I heard formerly read here in Concord. I know I never have. There was some excellent reason each time why I did not but it will never be too late. I have had that advantage, at least, over you in my education. Thoreau, Letter to Emerson, 1848. 1835. Between college terms taught school at Canton, near Boston, where he boarded and also studied German with the Rev. Orestes A. Brownson. 1836. Went to New York with father, peddling. His health had failed, and he was obliged to absent himself from college. 1837. Was graduated at Harvard, in August. Camped by Lincoln Pond, with Stearns Wheeler. Later, taught in the Concord Academy. Notwith- standing what he himself says of his entrance to the college, and the impression one gets from some of his biographers, Thoreau maintained a very Kqir rank in his class, and at graduation took part in a conference with Charles Wyatt Rice and Henry Vose on the Commercial Spirit of Modern Times, Considered in its Influence on the Political, Moral, and Literary Character of a Nation. Memorials of the Class of 1837 of Harvard University...