Steep Trails.

MUIR, John.

Item Number: 72063

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918.

First edition, early printing of this collection of essays which covers the period from 1873 to 1902. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated. Edited by William Frederic Badè. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with light rubbing. Rare in the original dust jacket.

Originally published in 1918, this brilliant collection of letters and magazine articles spans nearly thirty years of Muir's writing. Here is Muir caught in a snowstorm below the peak of Mount Shasta; interviewing the one remaining miner in a Nevada ghost town; bathing "clean as a saint" in the Great Salt Lake, and sparring with Mormon elders; exploring the forests of Puget Sound, and climbing Mount Rainier; peering into the Grand Canyon, "a collection of stone books covering thousands of miles of shelving, tier on tier." "Muir's writing has survived for a century because he was not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve. He didn't hunt or fish in the wilderness, sell trees or snag nuggets, and thus in a sense he has only been freshened for us by the passage of time" (Edward Hoagland). Kimes 351; BAL 14777.