When Elizabeth Witherell speaks about Henry Thoreau, her voice radiates enthusiasm.

Witherell is the editor in chief of The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, a project whose office is buried deep within the third floor of Founders Memorial Library.

As the only one of its kind in the United States, the project exists to compile, research and publish the journals, essays, correspondence and other works of the 19th-century American writer. Thoreau may be best known for “Walden,” an account of his two years at a cabin in Massachusetts.

“‘Walden’ is an absolute masterpiece,” Witherell said. “You just have to turn yourself over to him and follow his spiritual journey. I just love the line, ‘There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star,’ at the end of ‘Walden.’”

Witherell described the long process that helps unearth some of Thoreau’s work. Many of the most interesting discoveries are found through investigation.

One man found a letter Thoreau wrote after checking out a book from a Harvard library and discovering it tucked into its pages.

Witherell has worked on the project since 1974, and became editor in chief in 1980. Walter Harding originally founded the project in 1966 at the State University College of New York at Geneseo.

Since that time, it has occupied space at three other universities. Witherell moved it to NIU in 1999, after her husband became the director of Fermilab in Batavia.

When completed, The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau will comprise 30 volumes. So far, 14 have been published, including the eighth journal published by Princeton University Press this summer.

The direct costs of the project are about $150,000 a year. Much of the monetary support comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Since the project moved to NIU, the university also has provided support by providing resources such as office space.

The graduate students working on the project also expressed zeal about Thoreau and this project.

“Thoreau was such an insightful and interesting person,” said Andy Sidle, a graduate student studying English. “He was a poet through his prose writing.”

Part of working on the project includes transcribing Thoreau’s extensive handwritten journals so they can be published.

Reading and transcribing these is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job, said Dianne Piper-Rybak, an English graduate student and editorial assistant.

“It makes you feel so close to him,” she said. “I think Thoreau is the best American writer we’ve ever had.”