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When Seth Lesser read Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden: Or Life in the Woods” in 1904 — a half century after the novel was published — he was inspired to do as Thoreau did. Like Thoreau, he sought to understand society by isolating himself from it for a while. Like Thoreau, he freed himself from the mundane things of his life and strove for self-sufficiency. Like Thoreau, he was inspired by the idea of simplicity.

Born in December 2, 1885 in Charleston, West Virginia, Seth Lesser was from an upper middle class family of lawyers which had been part of the West Virginia social elite since the end of the 18th century. Young Seth was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps: pre-law at Princeton, law at Harvard and marry into one of the upper crust families of Charleston. But a literary summer camp at the end of his high school years changed the course of his life.

At the summer camp held in Iowa, Seth Lesser was introduced to the ideas of the “Greats” in the world of literature. Upon getting a-hold of Thoreau’s Walden, he became consumed by the idea of retreating into a simple life to understand his world and determine what it was he wanted to do. Retreating into the woods not far from his family home, he got in touch with parts of himself that he never knew existed.

Coming home after a few months, Seth Lesser shocked his family with the announcement that he would become a published writer. He may not have written a groundbreaking novel like Thoreau did, but he came out of the experience enriched and a confident man who knew that he could survive on his own sans the trappings of modernity.