� His work shows abstract ideas of libertarianism and individualism
� Born in Concord, Massachusetts
� Studied at Harvard University
� Taught and tutored school during the 1830s and the early 1840s in Concord and Staten Island, New York
� From 1841 to 1843 he lived in the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson a transcendental philosopher and an American essayist
� During his stay with Emerson he met other transcendentalist such as Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and George Ripley.
� In 1845 he moved to a crude hut in the shores of Walden Pond a small body of water on the outskirts of Concord.
� Lived there until 1847
� Moved back to Emersion from 1847 to 1848
� Spent the years from 1849 living with his parents
� Supported himself by doing odd jobs like gardening, carpentry, and land surveying
� Major portion of his time was devoted to the study of nature meditating on philosophical problems, reading Greek, Latin, French, and English literature
� He had very long conversations with his neighbors
� Two publishing during his life time were A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and Walden; or, Life in the Woods
� In 1846 he chose to go to jail rather then to support the Mexican War by paying his poll taxes
� He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
� His ancestors were mostly clergy men because of his father
� He went to Boston and Harvard just like his father he graduated in 1821
� In 1825 he began to study the Harvard Divinity School and the following year he got a license to preach by the Middlesex Association of Ministers
� In 1829he married Ellen Louisa Tucker and died in 1831 from consumption
� He became a pastor at the Second Unitarian Church of Boston during the 1830s
� Three years later he had a crisis of faith, finding that he wasn�t interested in the rite of Communion
� Nature, his first book which was a collection of essays, first appeared when he was 33
� Emphasized individualism and rejected traditional authority
� Believed that people should try to live a simple life with nature and other people
� Heath started to fail after the burning of his house in 1872
� Made his last tour abroad in 1872-1873 and he withdrew more and more from the public life
� He died on April 27, 1882 in Concord
