BIB_ID
453871
Accession number
MA 23915
Creator
Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862.
Credit line
Gift of Susan Jaffe Tane in honor of the Morgan's Centennial, 2024.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 23.8 x 19 cm
Notes
High reserve.
Laid into a larger sheet.
Written in black ink, with some edits in pencil.
According to Thoreau scholars Elizabeth Witherell and Paul Schacht, as of February 2025, this leaf contains the only extant manuscript version of part of paragraph 29 and all of paragraphs 30 and 31 of “The Ponds.”
Based on physical evidence identified by Witherell and Schacht, this leaf was probably removed from a Manuscript Edition set. The evidence includes: the paper frame onto which the MS has been affixed; the horizontal fold which allowed the MS in its frame to fit into the book's case; the uneven edge at the top of the frame, where it was cut from the volume; and the offset of part of the limitation line visible at the bottom of the verso of the frame.
Laid into a larger sheet.
Written in black ink, with some edits in pencil.
According to Thoreau scholars Elizabeth Witherell and Paul Schacht, as of February 2025, this leaf contains the only extant manuscript version of part of paragraph 29 and all of paragraphs 30 and 31 of “The Ponds.”
Based on physical evidence identified by Witherell and Schacht, this leaf was probably removed from a Manuscript Edition set. The evidence includes: the paper frame onto which the MS has been affixed; the horizontal fold which allowed the MS in its frame to fit into the book's case; the uneven edge at the top of the frame, where it was cut from the volume; and the offset of part of the limitation line visible at the bottom of the verso of the frame.
Provenance
Susan Jaffe Tane.
Summary
A passage that appears in Chapter 9, "The Ponds," of the 1854 edition of Walden, beginning "...not dollars" and ending "they grind my grist."
Catalog link
Department