Harmon Smith

As comprehensive a treatment of the friendship of Thoreau and Emerson as we're ever likely to see. Drawing on the journals, letters and published writings of the duo, as well as those around them, Smith has done a marvelous job of documenting the long relationship between these two great men of American letters. Nuanced and careful (at least much of the time), Smith manages to analyze the friendship without getting drawn too far afield.

I noted some small errors, among them the fact that Harpers Ferry was at the time of John Brown's raid part of Virginia, not West Virginia, which didn't yet exist. But the errors seemed innocuous and I very much enjoyed the book overall.… (meer)