About A Yankee in Canada

By Henry David Thoreau

Published in 1866

First Edition. “A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers” is a collection of essays by Henry David Thoreau, which was published posthumously in 1866. It was edited by his sister Sophia Thoreau as well as William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who were his friends. “A Yankee in Canada” is the first essay in this collection, where Thoreau discusses his journey to the areas of Montreal and Quebec in 1850. Also in this collection is Thoreau’s famous essay called “Civil Disobedience.” Originally presented as a lecture in 1848 at Concord Lyceum, it was first published under the title “Resistance to Civil Government” in 1849 in Aesthetic Papers. It was in this first edition volume of “A Yankee in Canada” that the essay appeared under its new title, “Civil Disobedience.” In the essay Thoreau, a transcendentalist, argued that individuals should not allow governments to overrule their consciences and they have a duty to stop injustices from taking place.