is an account of the two years and two months that David Henry Thoreau lived on the shores of Walden Pond, supporting himself by the labor of his own hands. In conducting this natural experiment in simple living, Thoreau hoped to discover what was essential to life. In this book, he says: not accept is a revolutionary book, calling into question the very principles of modern society. It challenges the reader to reconsider the foundations of his or her life. The present version is a retelling of the first two chapters of the original. Part of the series, this retelling of the first two chapters of has been undertaken to make the book more widely accessible -- without diluting its intellectual content -- for both emerging adults seeking broader perspectives and intellectually curious older readers. The text is set in a slightly larger typeface for easier reading. The Author Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was a philosopher, naturalist, and abolitionist. He is considered the father of modern environmentalism. In 1846 he spent a night in jail for refusing to pay taxes to a government that permitted slavery. This experience led to his writing , which called for individual resistance to immoral government, and which influenced the thinking of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others.