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Summary
Summary
Essayist. Preservationist. Inventor. Lobbyist. John Muir may be California's best-known icon. A literary naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club and Yosemite National Park, Muir left his legacy on the landscape and on paper. Taking the best of John Muir's writings on nature--in which he waxes ecstatic even as he accurately describes the scientific attributes of a flower--as well as his thoughts on religion and society, Essential Muir presents a fresh look at one of California's greatest figures. His love for nature was so powerful--and his description of it so compelling--it still inspires us a century later.
Author Notes
The naturalist John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland. When he was 11 years old, he moved to the United States with his family and lived on a Wisconsin farm, where he had to work hard for long hours. He would rise as early as one o'clock in the morning in order to have time to study. At the urging of friends, he took some inventions he had made to a fair in Madison, Wisconsin. This trip resulted in his attending the University of Wisconsin. After four years in school, he began the travels that eventually took him around the world.
Muir's inventing career came to an abrupt end in 1867, when he lost an eye in an accident while working on one of his mechanical inventions. Thereafter, he focused his attention on natural history, exploring the American West, especially the Yosemite region of California. Muir traveled primarily on foot carrying only a minimum amount of food and a bedroll. In 1880 Muir married Louie Strentzel, the daughter of an Austrian who began the fruit and wine industry in California.
One of the first explorers to postulate the role of glaciers in forming the Yosemite Valley, Muir also discovered a glacier in Alaska that later was named for him. His lively descriptions of many of the natural areas of the United States contributed to the founding of Yosemite National Park in 1890. His urge to preserve these areas for posterity led to his founding of the Sierra Club in 1892.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Table of Contents
Introduction | p. ix |
Part 1 The Visionary Inventor | p. 1 |
"Knowledge and Inventions," from The Story of My Boyhood and Youth | p. 3 |
"The World and the University," from The Story of My Boyhood and Youth | p. 11 |
Part 2 The Wandering Minstrel | p. 23 |
"Through the Cumberland Mountains, the River Country of Georgia, and across Florida to Cedar Keys," from A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf | p. 25 |
Part 3 The Nature Scribe and Rhapsode | p. 35 |
"A Near View of the High Sierra," from The Mountains of California | p. 37 |
"A Windstorm in the Forest," from The Mountains of California | p. 55 |
"Yosemite Falls at Midnight," from The Life and Letters of John Muir | p. 65 |
"Nut Time in Squirrelville," from The Life and Letters of John Muir | p. 69 |
"Yosemite Glaciers," New York Tribune, Dec. 5, 1871 | p. 73 |
Part 4 The Global Adventurer | p. 85 |
"Eskimos and Walrus," from The Cruise of the Corwin | p. 87 |
"Stickeen vs. the Glacier," from Stickeen | p. 93 |
"Voyage to East Africa," from John Muir's Last Journey | p. 101 |
Part 5 The Planet Steward | p. 111 |
"God's First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?" Sacramento Daily Union, Feb. 5, 1876 | p. 113 |
"The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West," Atlantic Monthly, August 1897 | p. 119 |
Sources | p. 127 |
Major Works by John Muir | p. 129 |
About the Editor | p. 131 |