Walden (first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) by Henry David Thoreau is one of the best-known non-fiction books written by an American Published in 1854, it details Thoreau&39;s sojourn in a cabin near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts Thoreau lived at Walden for two years, two months, and two days, but Walden ritten so that the stay appears to be a year, with expressed seasonal divisions Thoreau did not intend to live as a hermit, for he received visitors and returned their visits Instead, he hoped to isolate hiain aof it Sioals, and the whole project was inspired by Transcendentalist philosophy However the house was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, 15 miles (24 km) from his family home, and his mother cooked him meals and cleaned the house