John Muir Periodical Collection.

MUIR, John.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 126180

Rare collection of periodicals containing first and early appearances of articles by or about John Muir. Octavo, 20 volumes, original illustrated wrappers. The collection includes: The Overland Monthly. Volume 9, No. 6, Number 43 [John H. Carmany & Co., San Francisco, December 1872] which contains Muir’s “Living Glaciers of California”; The Overland Monthly. Volume 13, No. 2, Number 74 [John H. Carmany & Co., San Francisco, August 1874] which contains Muir’s “Studies in the Sierra, No. IV, Glacial Denudation”; Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Volume 57, No. 342 [Harper & Brothers, New York, November 1878] which contains Muir’s “The New Sequoia Forests of California”; The Californian Illustrated Magazine. Volume 2, No. 1 [The California Publishing Co., San Francisco, June 1892] which contains Jean Carr’s “John Muir”; The Century Magazine. Volume 40, No. 5, [The Century Co., New York, September 1890] which contains Muir’s landmark article “Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park”; Muir’s “A Rival of the Yosemite, The Canon of the South Fork of King’s River, California” removed from an issue of The Century Magazine; The Craftsman. Volume 7, No 6 [Gustav Stickley, Syracuse, March 1905] which contains George Wharton James’ “John Muir: Geologist, Explorer, Naturalist”; French Strother’s  “A Conversation with John Muir” removed from a 1906 issue of World’s Work; Sierra Club Bulletin. Volume 10, No. 1 [Publications of the Sierra Club Number 51, San Francisco, January 1916] which contains “John Muir Memorial Number”; Natural History, Volume 20, No. 2, March-April 1920 which contains William Frederic Bade’s “Yosemite and John Muir”; and several other volumes. In very good to near fine condition. Rare and desirable, particularly containing the rare first appearance of Muir’s landmark work “Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park”.

Also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", influential Scottish-American naturalist and environmentalist John Muir's letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, and his example has served as an inspiration for the preservation of many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, "The Treasures of the Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park"; this helped support the push for U.S. Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas.