A5701

Henry David Thoreau

Philosopher, Poet, and Environmental Scientist

“Wild Apples”

Cover Announcement 

This American essayist, poet, philosopher, author, naturalist, and historian is best known for his book Walden which is an account of his simple living in natural surroundings. Thoreau became fascinated with botanical history and admired William Bartran as well as being intrigued with Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle.

He kept detailed accounts of Concord's nature lore including how fruit ripened over time. Exploring this facet of Thoreau's activities, my granddaughter Alexa decided to base her cachet design on his essay "Wild Apples." After seeing a self-portrait Alexa (a high school sophomore) had done plus some still lifes of fruit, I asked her to illustrate a cachet for this stamp.

This Collins cover turned out to be a beauty! The portrait of Thoreau appears at left and is very well done including his penetrating eyes. In the center is an excerpt from his lengthy essay "Wild Apples" with a wonderful passage describing apples: Green as the fields...yellow at harvest time...and the reds of mornings and evenings. To the lower right, Alexa has added three apples reflecting the colors thus expressed.

The new stamp has a first day of issue small bullseye postmark from Concord, Massachusetts. As a final marvelous touch there is something added to this cover that does not appear on the illustration below. As a tribute to Thoreauos love of botany, a free hand apple tree branch has been added in the space between the postmark and the apples. As with the other parts of the cachet, it is in beautiful natural watercolors.

It is with a great deal of pleasure that I announce this cachet with the illustrator being my granddaughter Alexa. Her name is at the lower left on the cover. From the esteemed poet's essay "Wild Apples" in which he bears witness to the reds of mornings and evenings, the green fields of new England, and the yellows of a golden harvest, the cachet reveals an expressive glimpse of nature. Henry David Thoreau. Collins # A5701- $15.00.