THOREAU, Henry David (1817-1862). Autograph manuscript, a journal entry for 29 August 1852.

Two pages on a single leaf, 240 x 183mm, in brown ink, several autograph corrections and insertions in pencil (laid into larger leaf). Bound into the first volume of: The Writings. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1906. Manuscript edition, limited to 600 sets (this is copy 271). 20 volumes, octavo (225 x 145mm). Original cloth, paper labels (spines sunned, some ink splashes on spines). Provenance: William E. Stockhausen (his sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 14 December 1974, lot 464).

A lovely manuscript leaf from Thoreau, together with a full set of his works. The text of the manuscript leaf is printed in the present set in Vol. X, pp. 324-25. The autograph passage begins, "If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century has to offer? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?"