Wild Fruits : Thoreau's Rediscovered Last Manuscript

The final harvest of a great writer's last years, "Wild Fruits" presents Henry David Thoreau's sacramental vision of nature - a vision compelling in part because it grew out of an approach to the natural world at once scientific and mystical.

The difficulties of Thoreau's handwriting, method of composition, notations and pagination have kept his final observations and meditations from publication until this version, edited by Bradley Dean.

In "Wild Fruits" Thoreau protests the desecration of the American landscape, reflects on the importance of preserving wild spaces "for instruction and recreation" and envisions a new American scripture.

As Dean writes, "wildness for Thoreau is the key to unlocking the miraculous in the commonplace; to understanding, as Thoreau expressed the idea in Walden, that heaven is 'under our feet as well as over our heads'".