"[Searls's selection] admirably preserves the feel of the 7,000-page original. This lightweight, sturdy edition ... practically begs to be read outside." –Thomas Meaney,
Times Literary Supplement
"...we are richer now that Damion Searls has unearthed new Thoreauvian treasures for the rest of us – a 10th of the two-million-word journal, far more than ever before available in a single volume. Here, in some of the most vigorous and original prose in English, we find the origins of "Walden" and the other books, but we also find that the journal was a work of art in itself." – Michael Sims,
The Washington Post "Writer, editor, and translator Searls selected passages from this vast sea of words to create the largest and most cohesive one-volume reader's edition ever published...This is a superb and uniquely accessible edition of an essential American masterpiece." –
Booklist
"Damion Searls has found and freed the lean, shapely and
modern American classic inside the very definition of a 'baggy monster.'" –Christopher Lydon,
Open Source Radio
"More than any previous version, it allows a direct encounter with this great work and approximates the experience of reading the whole. In fact, by clearing away some of the underbrush in the fourteen volumes, it highlights the better-known passages and uncovers hidden gems and significant connections." –Geoff Wisner,
The Quarterly Conversation "It is the unflagging beauty of the writing, day after day, that confirms its greatness among writers' journals." –Alfred Kazin
"Thoreau could lift a fish out of the stream with his hands; he could charm a wild squirrel to nestle in his coat; he could sit so still that the animals went on with their play round him. [In the Journal] we have a chance of getting to know Thoreau as few people are known, even by their friends." –Virginia Woolf
"Reading Thoreau's
Journal I discover any idea I've ever had worth its salt."–John Cage
