"I exult in stark inanity."
-Henry David Thoreau, Journal, Jan. 24, 1841
-Henry David Thoreau, Journal, Jan. 24, 1841
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Read M. Allen Cunningham's introduction to Funny-Ass Thoreau on LIT HUB Funny-Ass Thoreau has also been highlighted on Arts & Letters Daily, the Paris Review Daily, Poets & Writers Daily News, and The Seattle Review of Books. The Thoreau Society added Cunningham's introductory essay to the official Thoreau bibliography. |
“Thoreau’s assault on the Concord society of the mid-nineteenth century has the quality of
a modern western: he rides into the subject at top speed, shooting in all directions ...
and when the shooting dies down and the air clears, one is impressed chiefly by the courage
of the rider and by how splendid it was that somebody should have
ridden in there and raised all that ruckus.” --E.B. WHITE
“Playful humor and sparkling thought appear on almost every page.” --The Christian Register, 1854
“Unique, original, comical, and highfalutin.”--The Eastern Argus, 1849
“Witty, sarcastic, and amusing.”--The Worcester Palladium, 1849
“Intellectual entertainment that should not be neglected.”--The Worcester Spy, 1849
a modern western: he rides into the subject at top speed, shooting in all directions ...
and when the shooting dies down and the air clears, one is impressed chiefly by the courage
of the rider and by how splendid it was that somebody should have
ridden in there and raised all that ruckus.” --E.B. WHITE
“Playful humor and sparkling thought appear on almost every page.” --The Christian Register, 1854
“Unique, original, comical, and highfalutin.”--The Eastern Argus, 1849
“Witty, sarcastic, and amusing.”--The Worcester Palladium, 1849
“Intellectual entertainment that should not be neglected.”--The Worcester Spy, 1849
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America's ur-nonconformist, the so-called "hermit" of Walden Pond, was a comic at heart. Amid the transcendental musings of his best known works and the nature descriptions in his voluminous journal, Thoreau was constantly tossing off jokes, whipping out witticisms, and making fun of himself and others.
Now, just in time for the 2017 bicentennial of his birth, Funny-Ass Thoreau presents the famous writer in marvelous display of his most underappreciated quality: a killer sense of humor. Here's Henry in his own words as he tries to wrangle a pig, pees in the woods, loses a tooth, laughs at Emerson shooing off his own cow, observes the slippery slapstick of snowmelt and mud in the Concord streets, elaborates on his dislike of other men’s bowels, and more. Included in this volume is Thoreau’s posthumously-published lecture, “Getting a Living,” which can (and should be) read as a stand-up philosophy routine bristling with one-liners. (Edited & with an introduction by M. Allen Cunningham) |
“[Thoreau] was literally the most childlike, unconscious, and unblushing egotist it has ever been my fortune to encounter.”--HENRY JAMES, Sr. “Thoreau defined his own position to the world not only with unflinching honesty, but with a glow of rapture at his heart. He seems to hug his own happiness.”--VIRGINIA WOOLF “If Henry Thoreau was a thorn-bush, he was the kind that bears the fragrant flowers.”--Van Wyck Brooks |
Funny-Ass Thoreau is the inaugural title in Atelier26 Books’ Regeneration Series, which aims to bring the best of bygone literary voices and works back into currency through small, friendly, handsomely designed volumes.
Volume 2, Stevenson in the States, is forthcoming.
LITERATURE/HUMOR
ISBN: 978-0-9893023-8-8
Trade Paperback 5.5 x 8.5
188 pages
Volume 2, Stevenson in the States, is forthcoming.
LITERATURE/HUMOR
ISBN: 978-0-9893023-8-8
Trade Paperback 5.5 x 8.5
188 pages
