Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau was born in Massachusetts in the early 1800's. He was a part of a poor family that sold pencils but attended renowned schools such as Concord Academy and then Harvard College. He worked as a teacher for short time before quitting because he could not punish the students. He was unable to find another teaching job at this time. However, this was around the time he met Ralph Waldo Emerson. Many people believe this to be the most influential event of his life. I believe it is because a lot of what he does later seems to have been influenced by this.
I believe that Ellen Sewall's rejection to Thoreau's marriage proposal in 1840 also impacted him tremendously. Not only did she reject him but she also rejected his brother before him. She was pressure from her family because they believed he was too radical and financially unstable. This, I think, would negatively impact any man. There's also the fact that he moved into a shack which was relatively far from the rest of society to be alone to write five years later. The sad part of it which is stated online was that "Walden was met with scant interest. He revised the work eight times before a publisher accepted it, and the book found only marginal success during Thoreau's lifetime."(Spark notes p.1)
If his life was not sad enough, Thoreau's relationship with Emerson slowly faded due to tension most likely caused by Thoreau being so close with Lidian, Emerson's second wife. He moves back into his family home and takes selling pencils. As the slavery debate was taking place at this time he took an active role in speaking out against slavery. However, in 1862 at the age of 44, he dies of tiberculosis.

Works Cited
Walden Henry David Thoreau
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/walden/context.html