With the publication of The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, Princeton University Press joins university presses throughout the United States which are cooperating in the major project, organized by the Center for Editions of American Authors and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, to make the work of major American writers available in authoritative texts. Despite the wide recognition of Thoreau's importance not only as an American writer but as a world writer, there has been no complete and authoritative edition of his writings until now. The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, under the general editorialship of William L. Howarth, provides for the scholars and the general reader authoritative texts, edited according to the most advanced bibliographical principles, and presented with textual notes.
