Henry David Thoreau is one of the most widely recognized names in American letters. Born in 1817, he wrote extensively on naturalism, transcendentalism, philosophy, global and American politics, and abolition. He is best known for is the author of Walden, a seminal text on living simply in a natural environment, and Civil Disobedience, an essay arguing for the individual right to resist a morally unjust state. He died in 1862.