The Main Woods and Walden by Henry David Thoreau

The Main Woods was written as three essays. If he had lived longer, Thoreau might have revised them into a more cohesive whole, but he never had the time to do this. The book describes trips over an eleven year period, and Thoreau's work on these essays spanned 15 years. Walden is an American classic. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, and manual for self reliance.