[Rarebooks] FS: Thoreau's THE MAINE WOODS, 1864, Association Copy Belonging to Thoreau's Friend, John S. Keyes

[Charles Agvent]

THOREAU, Henry David. THE MAINE WOODS. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1864. 
First Edition. Original plum TR cloth. BAL 20113: 1650 copies printed 
though Borst A4.1.a states that 1450 copies were printed. True first 
printing with list of Thoreau's books priced. No catalogue bound into 
this copy. From the library of John Shepard Keyes with his ownership 
SIGNATURE in ink on the front fly: "John S. Keyes." Keyes was a close 
friend and classmate of Henry David Thoreau, just a year or two younger. 
He was also a fellow suitor of Ellen Sewall, who famously declined 
Thoreau's marriage proposal. Their friendship was often strained for 
other reasons; about the same time Thoreau was living in his cabin at 
Walden Pond, Keyes was seeing his father's will through probate-- the 
largest estate ever probated in Concord up to that time, and soon after 
he built a grand home near the town center. Keyes became a prominent 
citizen of Concord, later serving as a judge. Like Thoreau, Keyes was 
also friends of the Emerson family and kept a diary that echoed many of 
Thoreau's views of life. But Keyes was less conflicted about getting on 
in the world, was politically conservative, and openly admitted his 
philistine leanings. After Thoreau's death he was interviewed from time 
to time about his dead friend, and like other Concordians, he usually 
provided a candid and negative account. For the most extended 
biographies of Keyes, consult THE CONCORD SOCIAL CIRCLE, and Smith, 
HISTORICAL GUIDE TO HENRY DAVID THOREAU, pages 212-220 et seq. Also see 
Thoreau, CORRESPONDENCE, pages 192 and 656, for letters of Thoreau 
mentioning Keyes and Meltzer & Harding, A THOREAU PROFILE, pages 30-31, 
for a diary entry by Keyes about Thoreau. Association copies of 
Thoreau's posthumous books are scarce, and this is an important one. 
Contents clean. Spine sunned, gilt a little dull, and frayed at tips and 
along edges with a large vertical piece missing but not affecting the 
lettering.
About THE MAINE WOODS, Dave Foreman, Earth-First eco-warrior/author, has 
written that it is "Thoreau's finest book, far deeper and more important 
than WALDEN ... on his two trips into the deep Maine wilderness 
[Thoreau] had the epiphany that enabled him to realize that 'in wildness 
is the preservation of the world.' MAINE not WALDEN changed American 
intellectual history." (#015690)        $1,500

https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/015690/henry-david-thoreau/the-maine-woods

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