In his Journal of October 27, 1853 Thoreau wrote that he was obligated to buy back from the printer the remaining copies of his A Week On the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Of the 1000 books printed he had to buy 706, which he still owed money on and had to carry up two flights of stairs. "I have now a library of nearly 900 volumes," he wrote, "over 700 of which I wrote myself."