Excursions contains the complete texts of nine of Thoreau's most popular essays. These include Natural History of Massachusetts, his first essay to appear in The Dial (a quarterly periodical edited by Margaret Fuller), as well as other well known early works like A Winter Walk and The Landlord. Later works include his famous essays Walking, Autumnal Tints and Wild Apples, the last of which was based on a lecture he gave during the Concord Lyceum's 1859-1860 season and was published in the Atlantic Monthly after his death.