Thoreau’s Botany: Thinking and Writing with Plants

Thoreau's  last years have been the subject of debate for decades, but only  recently have scholars and critics begun to appreciate the posthumous  publications, unfinished manuscripts, and Journal entries that occupied  the writer after Walden (1854). Until now, no critical reader has delved  deeply enough into botany to see how Thoreau's plant studies impact his  thinking and writing. Thoreau's Botany moves beyond general literary  appreciation for the botanical works to apply Thoreau's extensive  studies of botany-from 1850 to his death in 1862-to readings of his  published and unpublished works in fresh, interdisciplinary ways.  Bringing together critical plant studies, ecocriticism, and  environmental humanities, James Perrin Warren argues that Thoreau's  botanical excursions establish a meeting ground of science and the  humanities that is only now ready to be recognized by readers of  American literature and environmental literature.