April 30, 2010

Thoreau makes an ash of himself (1844)

Henry David Thoreau burns down part of Walden Woods on this day in 1844. While on a fishing trip up the Sudbury River with a Harvard friend, Edward Sherman Hoar, the men stopped on the shore of Fair Haven Bay to cook up a mess of fish they had caught. "We had kindled many fires in the woods before — burning a clear space in the grass — without ever kindling such a fire as this," Thoreau would write. But the spring had been especially dry, the fire spread, and by the time it was put out, at least 150 acres — some writers estimate 300 acres — of woods and fields had burned.

The fire was a disaster for Thoreau. His writing career had reached a dead end when The Dial magazine has suspended publication that month. He was already regarded by Concord's residents as shiftless and eccentric. Now, he was an irresponsible firebug as well. Only Hoar's father, a prominent citizen who paid farmers for the damages, saved him from charges.

Clearly, Thoreau needed a radial change, and one was coming. Later that year, his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson had bought 14 acres, and next year, Thoreau would begin constructing a small cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, where he would write the book that would immortalize him.

Thoreau's very bad day in the woods formed the basis for Woodsburner: A Novel, a novel by John Pipkin. Ron Charles reviewed the book in The Washington Post, from which the above illustration was borrowed.

Also on this day

1642: Poet Richard Lovelace presents the Kentish Petition to the House of Commons, seeking the restoration of the Anglican bishops to the Long Parliament. For this request, he is thrown into the Gatehouse prison, where he writes "To Althea From Prison," which concludes with "Stone walls do not a prison make, / Nor iron bars a cage; / Minds innocent and quiet take / That for an hermitage; / If I have freedom in my love, / And in my soul am free, / Angels alone that soar above, / Enjoy such liberty.

1952: "The Diary of Anne Frank" is published in English. It had been published in Dutch as "The Secret House" by her father, Otto Frank, five years before. The book's amazing impact has led to accusations that range from the ludicrous (the diary's a fake) to the contentious (Otto Frank heavily edited and left out material critical of the family). The Straight Dope website examines the issues, while Snopes focused on the far more important issue of was Pia Zadora's acting in the stage version so bad the audience yelled "She's in the attic"?

1900: While filling in for a sick friend and attempting to make up lost time, train engineer John Luther Jones dies in a train wreck near Vaughan, Mississippi. A black engine wiper named Wallace Saunders, would mourn his friend by creating a song, put to the music of a popular song, "Jimmie Jones." Railroaders picked up the song, and"The Ballad of Casey Jones" would enter the popular culture, with its story of:

Casey Jones, he died at the throttle,
With the whistle in his hand.
Casey Jones, he died at the throttle,
But we'll all see Casey in the promised land

1930: William Faulkner's most famous short story, "A Rose for Emily," is published.

Born today: William Lilly, astrologer, author, almanac compiler, Diseworth, Leicestershire, 1602; Alice B. Toklas, memoirist, San Francisco, 1877; Jaroslav Hasek, novelist, Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungray, 1883; John Crowe Ransom, poet, critic, Pulaski, Tenn., 1888; Larry Niven, sci-fi writer, Los Angeles, 1938; Annie Dillard, poet, critic, nature writer, Pittsburgh, Penn., 1945; Josip Novakovich, short-story writer, Daruvar, Croatia, 1956.

Died: Sara Josepha Hale, author, poet, Philadelphia, 1879; John Luther "Casey" Jones, railroad driver, Vaughan, Miss, 1900; A(lfred) E(dward) Housman, poet, Cambridge, England, 1936; Jessie Fauset, editor, novelist, critic, poet, Philadelphia, 1961; Richard Scarry, childrens' author, illustrator, Gstaad, Switzerland, 1994.

Quote for the Day: "In literary history, generation follows generation in a rage." — Annie Dillard, who was born today in 1945

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