A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This first printing of the first trade edition of the chronicle of John Muir’s environmental awakening is a near fine copy in a very good dust jacket. This was an attractive edition, bound in a smooth, medium green cloth, printed in white on the spine and front cover with an inset upper front cover illustration. The illustrated contents are bound with untrimmed fore and bottom edges and gilt top edges. The white dust jacket printed in blue features a color upper front face illustration mirroring the illustration on the binding. This copy is near fine in a very good dust jacket. The green cloth binding is square, tight, clean, and unfaded with sharp corners and only trivial shelf wear to extremities, including wrinkling to the spine ends. The contents remain bright with a crisp, unread feel. We find no spotting, soiling, or previous ownership marks. The untrimmed fore and bottom edges are likewise immaculate, the gilt top edges clean and bright. The illustrated dust jacket is nearly complete, with only fractional loss at the flap fold corners and spine ends. The jacket is moderately soiled and shows shelf wear to extremities, as well as a roughly .75 x .75 inch scar in the blank portion of the spine heel just above the publisher’s name, plausibly from sticker removal. The jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.
It has been said that if not for an 1867 industrial accident, John Muir would not have become one of the world's great naturalists and conservationists. But there were signs. One was his drive to "devour every book that he came across". Another was the fact that, even though Muir matriculated at the University of Wisconsin, "he did not bother to take his degree in 1863, preferring to study his own interests, practical geology and botany, rather than university-approved subjects. By making field trips in Wisconsin, neighboring states, and Canada, Muir increased his knowledge of nature, especially of plants."
Then came a catalyst for commitment to his path. "In 1867, while working at a carriage parts shop in Indianapolis, Muir suffered an eye injury that temporarily blinded him. When he regained his sight one month later, Muir resolved to turn his eyes permanently and entirely to regard for nature's wonders. He began with the thousand-mile walk chronicled in this book, which took Muir, step-by-step, journal entry by journal entry, into his own. A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf is a window on Muir’s environmental awakening, chronicling the awe and resilience that would define his life.
Further wanderings brought him to San Francisco in March 1868, and by that summer Muir had made his first home in Yosemite. Muir became a foundational member of the conservation movement. While he lost battles, his influence was unequivocal, including on President Theodore Roosevelt, with whom Muir camped in Yosemite and who acted as President to save 148 million acres of forest and created 50 areas to protect wildlife, 16 national monuments, and 5 national parks.
"In later years he turned more seriously to writing, publishing 300 articles and 10 major books that recounted his travels, expounded his naturalist philosophy, and beckoned everyone to 'Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.'" By the time he died in late 1914, the public image of John Muir, as a scraggly-bearded, scarecrow-thin, almost Old Testament visionary of wood and mountain, was iconic. Only thereafter did the work of the wide-eyed and wondering 29-year-old Muir, who had not yet even seen the Sierras, finally greet the public. After Muir's death, his literary executor and first biographer William Frederic Badè worked from Muir's original 1867 notebooks he had kept throughout his “Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf” to produce this book - arguably Muir's first, even though it took nearly half a century to achieve publication.
References: ANB; NPS; Sierra Club. Item #008945
Price: $1,200.00