Emerson, Thoreau, and the Society of Natural History

A LIST OF THE BOOKS which Henry David Thoreau borrowed from the Harvard College Library between I830 and i86o was published several years ago.1 Other interesting evidence of his varied reading appears in his own handwriting, accompanied by signatures, in the Librarian's Record: Books Borrowed I847-I864,2 a journal of the Boston Society of Natural History, kept while the society was located on Mason Street. The system for recording loans maintained in this volume was apparently abandoned when the institution moved, in June, I864, to 234 Berkeley Street, for no other charging lists covering earlier or later periods are extant among the important manuscripts now temporarily deposited in the New England Trust Company, 99 Newbury Street, in Boston. We may, therefore, never know to what extent Emerson used the library and borrowed its books during the decade of his greatest interest in natural history, I833-I843. The steps leading up to Emerson's association with the society are these. His brother, Charles Chauncy, became a member on August 2I, I833,3 and either then or earlier, with the co-operation of his second cousin, George Barrell Emerson, already a member, arranged for the introductory lecture on natural history which Emerson delivered before the society on November 5, shortly after his return from Europe.4 His enthusiastic visit to the Jardin des Plantes in

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• Thoreau

  Open Access•Lawrence Willson•American Anthropologist•1959

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