I Begin with Spring: The Life and Seasons of Henry David Thoreau

I Begin with Spring weaves natural history around Thoreau's life and times in a richly illustrated field notebook format that can be opened anywhere and invites browsing on every page. Beginning each season with quotes from Thoreau's schoolboy essay about the changing seasons, Early Bloomer follows him through the fields and woods of Concord, the joys and challenges of growing up, his experiment with simple living on Walden Pond, and his participation in the abolition movement, self-reliance, science, and literature. The book's two organizing themes--the chronology of Thoreau's life and the seasonal cycle beginning with spring--interact seamlessly on every spread, suggesting the correspondence of human seasons with nature's.