From Letters to Henry David Thoreau's Literary Agent

An excerpt from M. Allen Cunningham's The Honorable Obscurity Handbook. Part cultural commentary, part wry self-help manual, and part inspirational anthology, The Honorable Obscurity Handbook is available this month from Atelier26 Books.


  1. Walden; or, Life in the Woods (rethink title?) seems to us the kind of book most enjoyably read in the forest, but because the scarcity of electrical outlets in the forest will preclude robust e-book sales, I’m afraid we must decline at this time.

  1. In our judgment, Mr. Thurrow [sic] has fabricated a great portion of his text. The battle of the ants, for example, is obviously heavily embellished. In characters like the cheerful woodchopper, too, Mr. Thurrow draws mere caricatures and stretches plausibility to the breaking point suggesting that all these Simple Folk were conveniently at hand to help him illustrate his arguments. We cannot afford the scandal of yet another debunked memoir, so we’re going to pass at this time.

  1. Mr. Thoreau’s opening chapter “Economy” is overlong and fails to provide any fresh insights concerning the present downturn.

  1. It’s our understanding that Mr. Thoreau does not use e-mail. We can’t devote the excessive time required for dealing with an author who does not have a gmail or at least a yahoo account.

  1. The author’s philosophical tangents are distracting and hard to follow. What we want to know is: Were there bears in the woods? Did he ever fall through the ice or fall on his hatchet? Did he chew hallucinogenic mushrooms? Was there homoerotic tension with the woodchopper? Etc.

  1. His poetry seems self-indulgent and out of place and will alienate nonfiction readers.

  1. I really liked his bits of poetry. Would Mr. Thoreau consider foregoing his preachments and collecting his verse instead? Something along the lines of Chicken Soup for the Rustic Outdoorsman’s Soul?

  1. What did Mr. Thoreau eat in his cabin in the woods? To whom did he pray? Who did he love? If he were to restructure his book around these concerns, we might reconsider.

  1. Hello, I am Ms. M_____’s assistant and I have enjoyed it has been my pleasure to read [sic] this ms. I decided in the end however that the author tells too much instead of showing. When he does show, he starts to get carried away in long descriptions about trees, chickadees, and skunk cabbages. Did he ever think about attending an MFA program? I had some very admirable teachers in mine and now thanks to those skills and an incomparable network I am in publishing!

  1. It is very unlikely that any readers in our social media age will identify with a narrator so passionately extolling solitude.

  1. The author needs to decide what kind of book he is writing. As far as I can tell, his current text is a muddled conglomeration of political tract, cultural polemic, memoir, nature article, self‑help manual, and fairy tale. Obviously, that is far too many things to ask of one single book and consequently this manuscript feels bloated and incoherent.

  1. He goes overboard with his references to history and religion — these are way too numerous and needlessly arcane (the Colossi of Memnon? Twelve Labors of Hercules? Hygeia?). It’s a poor stylistic choice, also, to imitate a bullfrog by writing, “tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk.”

  1. It has come to our attention that the author’s prior book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, sold fewer than 300 copies. This is a less than desirable track record (to put it mildly) and, we believe, reflects upon the overall problems in his work: a crabby voice, a provincial subject matter, and of course, given his lack of platform beyond the community lecture circuit, the great unlikeliness of strong sales. Has Mr. Thoreau considered blogging?
Order The Honorable Obscurity Handbook HERE.