In the late summer of 1839, Thoreau and his older brother John made a two-week boat-and-hiking trip from Concord, Massachusetts, to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. After John's sudden death in 1842, Thoreau began to prepare a memorial account of their excursion, and he arranged for its publication at his own expense in 1849. This book's heterodoxy and apparent formlessness troubled its contemporary audience. Modern readers, however, have come to see A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers as an appropriate predecessor to Walden, with Thoreau's story of a river journey depicting the early years of his spiritual and artistic growth.