This simple desk was part of Henry David Thoreau’s furnishings in his house at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847. On it he wrote Walden, universally acknowledged as one of the great books of American literature, as well as “Civil Disobedience,” one of the most influential essays in the worldwide democratic tradition. He also wrote the first draft of his book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, on this desk.