There is a lot of material on this website - to say the least. A friend suggested that I make some sort of effort to provide readers a guide to some of the highlights of the Collection. This seemed like a great idea - until I actually tried to do it. For every book and story below, there is another behind it. I've drafted and redrafted and it and its still way too long. But its the best I can do.
Category One. Books 'and/or' authors critical to the EC Movement. The ‘and/or’ is important.
There are a handful of actual books which are seminal (eg. Walden, Man & Nature, Sand County Almanac, Silent Spring). There are also some authors without one particularly stand-out book, but whose collective writings and books drove the Movement (eg. Burroughs, Muir). And there are those whose importance to the Movement transcends their literary output (in other words, their deeds are or were as or more important than their books) - but who, as authors, are justly represented in the Collection (eg. Teddy Roosevelt, David Brower, Bill McKibben).
I've bolded the dozen or so books/authors I consider to be the most seminal. Very subjective of course.
Category Two. Notable books from a purely collectible perspective. The vast majority of the books in the Collection are unique - rare, early, signed, association copies, etc., but these are a few that really stand out.
Category Three. Authors or books - often less well known - with great stories. Find the stories in the History and/or Catalogue sections. In some ways, these are my favorite.
Category Four. The most physically beautiful of the books, whether due to binding, pictorial contents, or both.
There is a lot of overlap, particularly between Categories One and Two (which makes sense - for this Collection, having ’collectible’ copies of the most important books and authors seems…obvious). Category One therefore represents the highlights of the highlights.
EC Movement Classics:
Gilbert White - Selborne (1789)
William Bartram - Travels (1791)
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Nature (1836)
Henry David Thoreau - Walden (1854)
Charles Darwin - Origin of Species (1860 second edition). Not an environmental book per se. But perhaps the most impactful book published in English in the 19th century, with a huge influence on all who come after. I couldn’t leave it out.
George Perkins Marsh - Man and Nature (1864) - The most important conservation book you’ve perhaps never heard of.
Works of John Burroughs (Particularly collectible: Walt Whitman (1867), Wake Robin (1871), Audubon (1902), Camping & Tramping (1907), Peckhams' Wasps (1898))
Works of John Muir (Particularly collectible: Mountains (1913 ed), Hetch-Hetchy pamphlet (1907), Wolff's John of Mountains (1938), and Studies (1950))
Mary Austin - The Land of Little Rain (1903)
Theodore Roosevelt - Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter (1905)
Gifford Pinchot - The Fight for Conservation (1910)
William Hornaday - Our Vanishing Wild Life (1913)
Henry Beston - The Outermost House (1928)
Ansel Adams - The John Muir Trail (1938) - Could be in any category
Marjory Stoneman Douglas - River of Grass: The Everglades (1947)
Fairfield Osborn - Our Plundered Planet (1948)
William Vogt - Road to Survival (1948)
Aldo Leopold - A Sand County Almanac (1949)
Wallace Stegner [editor] - This is Dinosaur (1955 - Anthologies)
Rachel Carson - Silent Spring (1962) (including signed first and a copy of prepublication galley with substantial changes from published version)
Steward Udall - The Quiet Crisis (1963)
Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968)
Works of Edward Abbey - Esp Desert Solitaire (1968) and Monkey Wrench Gang (1975).
Works of Peter Matthiessen (And see George Schaller below)
Works (and activism) of David Brower
James Lovelock - Gaia (1979)
Devall and Sessions - Deep Ecology (1985)
Works (and activism) of Bill McKibben - Including The End of Nature (1989)
Marc Reisner - Cadillac Desert (1986)
Elizabeth Kolbert - The Sixth Extinction (2014)
Particularly rare/collectible books in addition to those above:
John Bartram - Observations (1751) and An Account (1766)
Works of Alexander von Humbolt (1811-1849) - Tough one. Could be in any Category.
Willam Barton - Flora of North America (1821-23). Provenance.
John James Audobon - Birds of America (1870 octavo - first published 1827-38) - Arguably, Category One.
Susan Fenimore Cooper - Rural Hours (1850) - This was borderline Category One.
Ernest Thompson Seton - A List of the Mammals of Manitoba (1886)
George Washington Carver - ALS x 2 (1932-33)
Aldo Leopold - Game Survey (1931)
Rachel Carson - Under the Sea-Wind (1941) and Edge of the Sea (1955)
Joseph Wood Krutch - Henry David Thoreau (1948)
Olaus and Margaret Murie - Wapiti Wilderness (1966) - Could have gone in any of the three Categories, particularly given Margaret's activism.
Works of George Schaller - Could have gone in any of the three Categories. All with an association to Matthiessen, including Mountain Monarchs, which Schaller was researching when he traveled to Nepal with PM, and which was the trip recounted in PM's The Snow Leopard.
Paul Brooks - Speaking for Nature (1980)
Roderick Nash - Wilderness and the American Mind (1967 - Reference)
Hans Huth - Nature and the American (1957 - Reference)
Barry Lopez - Arctic Dreams (1986)
Works of Gary Snyder - Esp. Turtle Island (1974). Could have gone in any Category.
3. Great stories:
Erasmus Darwin - Zootopia (1797)
Higginson - Outdoor Papers (1863)
Clarence King - Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada (1872) - Could have gone in any Category
Steel - The Mountains of Oregon (1890)
Works of Mary Austin
Anna Botsford Comstock - Handbook of Nature Study (1910)
Alice Eastwood - A Handbook of the Trees of California (1905)
Mitchell Prudden - On the Great American Plateau (1907)
Isabel Story - The National Parks and Emergency Conservation (1933) - Booklet
Alice Hamilton - Exploring the Dangerous Trades (1943)
Loren Eiseley - The Immense Journey (1957)
Wallace Byron Grange - Those of the Forest (1953)
Works of Bob Marshall (1930s-50s) - Could have gone in any of the three Categories.
Charles Kellogg - The Nature Singer (1929). Perhaps the most unusual book, and author, in the Collection.
Anne LaBastille - Woodswoman (1975)
Dian Fossey - Gorillas in the Mist (1991)
Petra Kelly - Thinking Green (1994)
Winona LaDuke - All Our Relations (1999)
Wangari Maathai - Unbowed (2006)
David Suzuki - The Legacy (2010)
4. Beautiful Books:
White - Selborne (1789). Binding
Audubon - Birds of America (1870 octavo - first published 1827-38)
Home Book of the Picturesque (1852 - Anthologies)
Marsh - Man & Nature (1864 - UK ed). Binding.
Picturesque America (1872 - Anthologies)
Haydn's USGGS Report (1883 - Government Publications)
Francis Parkman - Oregon Trail (1892 ed illustrated by Remington - orig ed 1849)
Eastwood - Trees (1905). Binding
Muir - National Parks (1909) and Yosemite (1912). Bindings. Picturesque California (1888).
Mary Austin - California (1914)
Rockwell Kent - Wilderness (1920)
Matthiessen - Wildlife in America (1959)
A Road Runs Through It (2008 - Anthologies)
Photo Books:
Works of Ansel Adams
Abbey - Slickrock (1971) and Cactus (1973)
Works of Roger Tory Peterson
Dinosaur (1955 - Anthologies)
Porter - Glen Canyon (1963) - This could have gone into Category One, given it was hugely instrumental in saving the Grand Canyon.
If you got this far down, a few honorable mentions:
Norman MacLean - A River Runs Through It (1976). Is there a better book? Ever? A stretch for this Collection, but a signed first.
McFarland's Roses (1936) - A stunningly beautiful book with no place in this Collection....but McFarland himself deserves a place of honor. Read the Catalogue for more.
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