Thoreau and the Language of Trees 

Trees were central to Henry David Thoreau’s creativity as a writer, his work as a naturalist, his thought, and his inner life. He admired their beauty, studied how they grew, took them as spiritual companions and wrote about them as few have. Using Thoreau’s words and his own  photographs of trees today, Higgins looks at Thoreau’s keen perception of trees, the poetry he saw in them, and how they fed his soul. Trees, he shows, were a central thread connecting all parts of Thoreau’s being—heart, mind, and spirit. 

Richard Higgins is a writer, editor and the author of Thoreau and the Language of Trees  (University of California Press, 2017). A former longtime staff writer for the Boston Globe, he is the co-author of Portfolio Life (Wiley, 2006) and co-editor of Taking Faith Seriously  (Harvard University Press, 2005). Higgins, who lives in Concord, Massachusetts, is a graduate of Holy Cross College, Columbia Journalism School, and Harvard Divinity School.