The Journals of Edmund Quincy Sewall Jr., 1837-1840

A Boy's Education Among the Reformers

Thoreau scholars have long been aware of the journal kept in Concord, Massachusetts during a period of seven weeks in 1840 when twelve-year-old Edmund Quincy Junior was attending John and Henry David Thoreau’s Concord Academy and boarding in the Thoreau household.

Edmund’s manuscript journal of 1840 was given to the American Antiquarian Society in 1945 but only recently has it become possible to present this diary alongside the three earlier journals Edmund kept between 1837 and 1840 mostly detailing his home life in Scituate, Massachusetts. Together these diaries offer a boy's eye view of what it was like to grow up in a social circle of New England's progressive intellectuals and reformers. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​