Thoreau is one of the most read and most influential of American authors, with a readership and a following around the world. His writings have been reprinted countless times, both in English and in translation into many foreign languages. His Walden is required reading in American literature courses at the college level. Much has been published about Thoreau's life and his work, both of which have been closely studied by scholars. The author himself has been idolized, and his image and quotations from his writings have been employed for a variety of purposes, including commercial use. In sharp contrast to his current popularity, during his lifetime there was only limited appreciation of Thoreau as a man and as a writer.
The way Thoreau was perceived by his contemporaries no doubt affected the reception of his work. Thoreau the man was easy to misunderstand. Even those who cared about him were conflicted in their feelings. He was not interested in making a good impression on others and did not care to correct false impressions. Thoreau's strong individualism, rejection of the conventions of society, and philosophical idealism all distanced him from others. He had no desire to meet external expectations if they varied from his own sense of how to live his life. Emerson, in his eulogy of Thoreau (printed in the August 1862 issue of Atlantic Monthly), wrote:
Had his genius been only contemplative, he had been fitted to his life, but with his energy and practical ability he seemed born for great enterprise and for command; and I so much regret the loss of his rare powers of action, that I cannot help counting it a fault in him that he had no ambition. Wanting this, instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a huckleberry-party.
But ambition was a word little used in Thoreau's writings. At the end of Walden he wrote, "Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises?"
