Documentary Editing, Association for
Date of this Version
2010
Document Type
Article
Citation
Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing, Volume 31: 2010 ISSN 0196-7134
Abstract
Thoreau’s unpublished Indian Books depict a similar consideration of these cultural vectors that cuts across the chronology of his career, which places them at the forefront of his most serious and ambitious research. In order to track Thoreau’s evolution as a writer and thinker, a re-evaluation of this text is necessary. In the 147 years since his death, comparatively little work has been done to bring the value of this remarkable text to light. Yet the advantages of our present digital age provide perhaps the most useful, but heretofore inaccessible, solution to the problem of discussing the Indian Books. In spite of the disorganized and unfinished nature of the manuscript, a new and innovative approach—comparable to the “database” concept employed by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price for their Walt Whitman Archive—would enable navigation of this vast, labyrinthine text without restricting its generative and multifarious potential
Included in
Digital Humanities Commons, Other Arts and Humanities Commons, Reading and Language Commons, Technical and Professional Writing Commons
Comments
© 2010 The Association for Documentary Editing. Used by permission.