THOREAU, HENRY DAVID. The Writings. 19 (of 20) volumes. Lacking vol. 3. Titles in red and black. Illustrated throughout, including a folding map of Concord. 8vo, contemporary 3/4 crushed green morocco, spines tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, top edges gilt, occasional minor rubbing to extremities, vol. 18 with line of white paint along most of front joint. Number 51 of 600 sets signed by the publisher and with an original 2-page manuscript sheet by Thoreau from his journal tipped into volume 1. Comprises 58 lines collected in Excursions in slightly different form ("To my surprise, the only yellow that I see amid the universal red and green and chocolate is one large tree top in the forest, a mile off in the east, across the pond, which by its form and color I know to be my late acquaintance the tall aspen (tremuliformis) of the 29th"). To create the text on this leaf, Thoreau rearranged observations from Journal entries of October 29 and 31 and November 2, 1858. In fall and winter 1858 he was composing and gathering Journal passages for a lecture titled "Autumnal Tints," which he first delivered in Worcester, Massachusetts, on February 22, 1859. Borst B3. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1906