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A photograph of Walter Harding at Bridgewater State College in 1936

Harding discusses the formation of the Thoreau Society from his own very informed point of view. Note that he mentions his use of the Thoreau Society Bulletin to publish features which were important to him on a personal level. He describes the…

Beginning with a brief overview of the foundations of his interest in Thoreau, this heartfelt address made before the Thoreau Society was Harding's way of announcing his plans to bequeath to them his collection of "Thoreauviana", as he was inclined…

Inspired by the writings of other Thoreauvian scholars, Harding tells of the start of his own interest in Thoreau. Harding first read Walden in college, even though he was interested in Thoreau years before due to an old high school English teacher.

A photo of Harding from 1934 - just two years before he started studying at Bridgewater state college. This photo is from the same year that he first became interested in Thoreau after a high school English teacher recommended his work to Harding.

In the first part of this article, Walter Harding describes how he had a sudden "compulsion to read Thoreau". He put in a lot of time and effort in his studies of Thoreau and building this collection of documents about Thoreau. He later goes on to…