Monday, May 14, 2018

John Muir : Nature Writings: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth; My First Summer in the Sierra; The Mountains of California; Stickeen; Essays (Library of America) Hardcover by John Muir and William Cronon (Library of America)



John Muir is one of my favorite authors and favorite people. I have read most if not all of his published writings. Everything he wrote is available free on line and in many individual volumes, compilations, and anthologies. Before going into details, I will give you my punchline: If I could only keep one Muir book in my library, this Library of America volume would be it. That is why I am posting my Muir review here.
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For someone new to Muir it is hard to know where to start, but the good news is that you can't go wrong - it is all good! For newcomers it is useful to distinguish between books that Muir wrote by his own hand, books under his name that were prepared and published posthumously by others from his journals, and biographies written by others.

In the first category are:
"The Mountains of California" (1894)
"Our National Parks" (1901)
"Stickeen" (1909)
"My First Summer in the Sierra" (1911)
"The Yosemite" (1912)
"The Story of My Boyhood and Youth" (1913)
"Travels in Alaska" (Muir died before this manuscript was completed. It was finished by an assistant and published in 1915, one year after his death.)

In the second category are three books prepared for publication by Muir's friend William Frederic Bade:
"A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf" (1916)
"The Cruise of the Corwin" (1917)
"Steep Trails" (1918)

Of the many biographies, here are three that I have read:
"Son of the Wilderness," by Linnie Marsh Wolfe (1930)
(See also "John of the Mountains - The Unpublished Journals of John Muir," by same author)
"The Life and Letters of John Muir," by William Frederic Bade (1924)
"A Passion for Nature - The Life of John Muir," by Donald Worster (2008)
All of these biographies are good, and contain samples of Muir's writings, but I much prefer Muir's own books.

Of the many collections and anthologies I mention three that I own:
"The Wilderness World of John Muir," Edwin Way Teale (1954) This contains no complete works but is a nice anthology. If I remember correctly, this was my first taste of Muir's writings.
"John Muir - Nature Writings," The Library of America, selections and notes by William Cronon (1997) This contains complete text of "Story of My Boyhood and Youth," "My First Summer in the Sierra," "The Mountains of California," "Stickeen," plus a nice assortment of essays. Like all Library of America volumes, this one is lovingly prepared and of high production quality. If I could only keep one Muir book in my library, this would be it.
Finally, there is a massive 2-volume Omnibus containing virtually everything that Muir wrote and more, but it appears to be Out of Print:
I. "John Muir - The Eight Wilderness Discovery Books" (ca. 1000 pages)
and
II. "John Muir - His Life and Letters and Other Writings" (ca. 900 pages)
If you want the whole shebang, get used copies of these two volumes. The production quality is not nearly as good as the Library of America volume. I found many typos and even entire pages that are out of sequence. But everything is here.
A nice bonus is that II includes not only Bade's biography ("Life and Letters"), but also "Alaska Days with John Muir" by Samuel Hall Young who was Muir's companion on some of his Alaska adventures. Young is also a gifted writer. If you like Muir, you will definitely enjoy "Alaska days."

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