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Deep Woods
John Burroughs is generally credited with having popularized the American nature essay as a literary genre. He journeyed to Yellowstone with President Theodore Roosevelt and hiked around the Grand Canyon and the Yosemite Valley with John Muir.
Collected here are natural history essays from the books that span Burroughs's most productive years, from 1871 to 1912. In these essays, Burroughs writes of the seasons, of his beloved Catskill Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Maine woods, and the far west of Yosemite and coastal Alaska.
Burroughs set the tone for a literary tradition that continues today. As Richard F. Fleck notes in the introduction: "Surely all American nature writers owe some debt to John Burroughs who takes the reader along the trail and gives him the sight, sound, and scent of the deep woods."
Collected here are natural history essays from the books that span Burroughs's most productive years, from 1871 to 1912. In these essays, Burroughs writes of the seasons, of his beloved Catskill Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Maine woods, and the far west of Yosemite and coastal Alaska.
Burroughs set the tone for a literary tradition that continues today. As Richard F. Fleck notes in the introduction: "Surely all American nature writers owe some debt to John Burroughs who takes the reader along the trail and gives him the sight, sound, and scent of the deep woods."
218 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
96 people want to read
About the author
John Burroughs
944 books175 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 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 21, 2025
I've been fond of "collections" of stories for a very long time. Anthologies, compilations, etc. That's what drew me to this book. I got it cheap, $8.99 from a used-book store; I didn't expect much. What I got was a subdued and mirthful collection of essays that re-ignited my passion for nature. Burroughs writes in a way that is very relaxing, it is easy to read. You can slip into the book and enjoy his world effortlessly. He speaks on the wonders of the American domestic wilderness as what at the time would have been a fairly benign hobbyist, the equivalent of the modern camper. But because of the era it comes off as something far more magnificent. This juxtaposition of peaceful domestic language and whimsy, with such majestic subject matter is wonderful for the modern reader. It made me think about what we've lost.
March 16, 2022
These essays truly make you feel that you are in nature, absorbing natural beauty. While its age is prominent in this piece, keeping in mind the cultural context of the time helps keep "Deep Woods" relevant.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews