Cape Cod, Henry David Thoreau
Cape Cod, Henry David Thoreau
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
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Cape Cod

Author: Henry David Thoreau

Narrator: John Lescault

Unabridged: 8 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/05/2017


Synopsis

Compiled from magazine articles published in the 1850s after his death, Cape Cod details several short trips Thoreau made to "the bare and bended arm ofMassachusetts" between 1849 and 1855. "He went to the Cape out of curiosity," explains Paul Theroux, "but in the course of his travel a great thing happened: Thoreau, the woodsman and landlubber, discovered the sea."Encounters with the ocean dominate the book, from the fatal shipwreck of the opening episode to the late reflections on the Pilgrims' Cape Cod landing and reconnaissance. Along the way, Thoreau relates the experiences of fishermen and oystermen, lighthouse keepers and ship captains, and their chronicles of exploration, settlement, and survival on the Cape against the threats of the wild sea and of encroaching modernity.

About Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an American essayist, naturalist, philosopher, and poet. Born at Concord, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard, he began his career as a teacher. Through his older friend and neighbor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, he became a part of the Transcendentalist circle and one of that group’s most eloquent spokespersons. He is best known for his book Walden and his essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.” 

About John Lescault

Patrick Cullen (a.k.a. John Lescault), a native of Massachusetts, is a graduate of the Catholic University of America. He lives in Washington, DC, where he works in theater.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim

My hat trick – my third review of the three classic naturalist books about Cape Cod. (The other two are The Outermost House by Henry Beston - 1928, and The House on Nauset Marsh by Wyman Richardson – 1947.) In the edition I am reviewing, Beston wrote the introduction. This is very much a naturalist......more

Goodreads review by robin

A Cape Cod Walk With Thoreau Thoreau visited Cape Cod in 1849, 1850, and 1853. These trips formed the basis for a series of essays, several of which Thoreau published in magazines. After Thoreau's death, the essays were gathered together and published as "Cape Cod" in 1865. Thoreau's "Cape Cod" is dif......more

Goodreads review by David

In his day as pioneers ventured West to settle America, it’s intriguing that, as a non-conformist, Thoreau ventured East. He views the shore of Cape Cod as a sort of neutral ground and an advantageous point for contemplating the world: “There is naked Nature, inhumanly sincere, wasting no thought on......more


Quotes

“Cape Cod is Thoreau’s sunniest, happiest book. It bubbles over with jokes, puns, tall tales, and genial good humor…Unquestionably the best book that has ever been written about Cape Cod, and it is the model to which all new books about the Cape are still compared.” Walter Harding, The Days of Henry Thoreau

“Illustrates the qualities that define [Thoreau’s] greatest works: his clarity and ease of style, and his concreteness as a naturalist and observer of nature and society. Patrick Cullen’s unforced and straightforward delivery…conveys both Thoreau’s strengths as a reporter and the secret of handling this author successfully in the audio format.” AudioFile