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Signs and Seasons: John Burroughs
Renowned as a pioneer of the new school of nature writing and among the most widely read authors of his time, John Burroughs has had a profound influence on our appreciation of nature. Signs and Seasons , originally published in 1886, provides an excellent introduction to the extensive work of one of America's great writers. Because the essays were collected and arranged by Burroughs himself, they offer a synoptic view of his complex and many-sided genius. Signs and Seasons covers a wide range of Burroughs’s interests, including plants and animals, the wilderness, pastoral landscapes, and the methods and goals of the naturalist. An authoritative new introduction by Jeff Walker makes Burroughs’s work relevant to the twenty-first century, not only through Burroughs’s excellent natural history writing but also through his beliefs about community, sustainability, and social justice. Additional notes give historical and scientific context for each essay and offer the reader fresh insight into his work. Walker’s intimate knowledge of the Hudson River valley, Riverby, and Slabsides, the areas about which Burroughs writes, reveals sympathy for, and understanding of, Burroughs’s work. This edition will be indispensable to the devotee of John Burroughs’s writing and to a new generation of environmental reader.
388 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1901
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About the author
John Burroughs
916 books174 followersIn 1837, naturalist John Burroughs was born on a farm in the Catskills. After teaching, and clerking in government, Burroughs returned to the Catskills, and devoted his life to writing and gardening. He knew Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir and Walt Whitman, writing the first biography of Whitman. Most of his 22 books are collected essays on nature and philosophy. In In The Light of Day (1900) he wrote about his views on religion: "If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go." "When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what is it that I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'There is no God' . . . " In his journal dated Feb. 18, 1910, he wrote: "Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all—that has been my religion." He died on his 83rd birthday. The John Burroughs Sanctuary can be found near West Park, N.Y., and his rustic cabin, Slabsides, has been preserved. D. 1921.
According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.
In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.
Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".
Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...
http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/
According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.
In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.
Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".
Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...
http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 22, 2011
This book is an invaluable insight into a man who was a naturalist, environmentalist and a deeply complex thinker. His rendering of plants, wilderness, animals coupled together with thoughts on social justice and environmental concerns makes him just as relevant as any writer today. This book not only challenged my thinking but in many chapters made me stop and smile at remembered ramblings of my own as an amateur naturalist.
July 4, 2012
This is one of my favorite books of all time. It is perfect for anyone who loves nature. I wish I could give it 10 out of 5 stars.
November 16, 2024
I’m not sure what lead me to pick up this book— probably because I spend part of my time in Putnam County, NY, in the lower Hudson Valley, not so far from the Catskills where this 19th Century naturalist farmed and wrote. I found that these essays were best read aloud. They are sort of sweet, but mostly just descriptive and not particularly informative or thought-provoking.
July 10, 2018
This book was written in 1886. John Burroughs could have written in today and it would be mostly the same. Ice removal and storage would be different. The book covers all the seasons, the weather and the animals of the woods. Nature walks he describes are so vivid.
October 19, 2019
Nothing too special. Simpy a man's patient observations of nature. Sit and watch and you may learn something. Hurry by and move too often and you may miss some facts. Diligence is the key to understanding.
May 27, 2013
Another great library find, even when it’s more in the category of “interesting” than “transcendent” for me. If Burroughs was bleeding with nostalgia in 1886, wistful for the good old days when houses were made of stone instead of wood, or fields were plowed by hand instead of machine, somewhere today his corpse is turning somersaults in his grave.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews