Lawrence, I believe your copy of the Walden Cliffsnotes is available atlawrenceindestin wrote:I also have to warn you I found my Cliff Notes from college (which were written just after Thoreau worte Walden) so I'll have some real ammo to agree with you.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/Lit ... d-159.html
This guide by Joseph R. McElrath is copyrighted 1971 -- the era of war protest, riot, student takeover of campuses, communes. You remember: live in the woods and be natural like HDT, supposedly. Walden was the hippy equivalent of the Little Red Book. Considering how trying the times must have been for him, I think McElrath's work is good, but be warned: his dominant attitude is resentment and his expression sarcastic.
I suspect that at the time McElrath was a poor, liberal arts Ph.D and grit his teeth and did the work because he needed the money. He did no work on Thoreau afterward that I have been able to find.
http://www.english.fsu.edu/faculty/jmcelrath.htm
This little book is the most significant thing McElrath wrote, and it is conspicuously missing from his list of Representative Publications.
Tom