Thoreau Farm is excited to partner with KLEIO a woman-owned, Massachusetts-based, sensory history company, to create a series of candles that transports you back to 19th-century New England, recreating the aromas of Thoreau’s world as detailed in his writings.
Named after the Ancient Greek muse of history, KLEIO brings the past to life by recreating the scents of a particular place in time. Just as you experience your world today, people of the past engaged all of their available senses. Their reality was just as vibrant and multisensory as your own, albeit one entirely of their own time. KLEIO helps unlock that history.
While creating the collection, KLEIO sensory historians and Thoreau experts worked closely to remain faithful to Thoreau’s sensorial record. The KLEIO x Thoreau Farm collection launches with two candles as part of a series:
- The Language of These Fields, a journey back to Thoreau’s Concord, Massachusetts in the 1850s.
- Forever Untamable Nature, an adventure in the Maine wilderness.
These candles are an invitation to learn more about and experience Thoreau’s world — but through your sense of smell.
Candles are available for purchase on-site a Thoreau Farm and online from KLEIO:
Purchase the KLEIO x Thoreau Farm candles Online
“If a man is rich and strong anywhere, it must be on his native soil. Here I have been these forty years learning the language of these fields that I may the better express myself.”
— Journal, November 20 1857
The Language of These Fields transports you back to Henry’s Concord where he would saunter past farms, through meadows, near bogs, and along Virginia Road, where Thoreau Farm stands today.
Wander through this “most estimable place in all the world” where “the meadow smells sweet as you go along low places in the road at sundown” and you may “pass through a little region possessed by the fragrance of ripe apples, and thus enjoy them without price, and without robbing anybody.” (Journal, December 5, 1856; Journal, May 26, 1852; and Wild Apples)
Fragrance Notes: Ripe Apple, Freshly Tilled Earth, Sun-kissed Field Grass, and Bog Moss
“Perhaps I most fully realized that this was primeval, untamed, and forever untamable Nature, or whatever else men call it, while coming down this part of the mountain.”
— Maine Woods
With Forever Untamable Nature, travel with Henry to the Maine wilderness of the 1840s and 1850s, and make camp near Ktaadn, Chesuncook, Allegash or East Branch.
Walk on “the fresh and natural surface of the planet Earth, as it was made forever and ever…a damp and intricate wilderness, in the spring everywhere wet and miry,” where “it is remarkable that such delicate flowers should here adorn these wilderness paths” and “there is no scent in it so wholesome as that of the Pines.” (The Maine Woods & Excursions)
Fragrance notes: Maine Fir, Bedewed Forest Earth, and Mudstone Moss
11 oz (311 gm) Large Luxury Candles
3.75″ tall and 4″ diameter
Double Wicks
Burn time 60+ hours
Hand-finished Glass Vessel and Lid
KLEIO candles are phthalate free and dye free. Our fragrance oils are free of carcinogens, mutagens, and reproductive toxins. Each candle features a proprietary coconut apricot wax blend, fragrance oils sourced from perfumeries throughout the world, and high-quality cotton wicks designed to provide an optimal burn. We use the highest possible fragrance to wax ratio, resulting in a powerful aromatic experience. KLEIO candles are uniquely hand finished, featuring hand-applied gold leaf — and we use a robust, heavy-base glass vessel.