Perhaps the best known non-fiction book ever written by an American, Walden chronicles Thoreau's stay in a cabin by Walden Pond, on land owned by his friend and compatriot, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau stayed here for two years and two months and hoped to gain a more objective understanding of socie...

Perhaps the best known non-fiction book ever written by an American, Walden chronicles Thoreau's stay in a cabin by Walden Pond, on land owned by his friend and compatriot, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau stayed here for two years and two months and hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society by isolating himself from it.