The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (Canongate Classic) [Paperback]

John Muir (Author)

Book Description

Series: Canongate Classic | Publication Date: April 1988

Introduced by Frank Tindall. Unknown in his native Scotland, John Muir is renowned in America as the father of conservation. A friend of presidents and founder of National Parks, Muir was inspired by a love and a vision of nature as remarkable today as it was last century. Born in mid-19th-century Scotland, Muir was eleven when his fanatically religious father took the family to build a new life in America's vast wilderness. He recalls his childhood and youth with startling clarity, depicting a wild boy whose quiet individuality and determination are already emerging. The pioneering years in Wisconsin powerfully anticipate the extraordinary career which was to follow. They reveal a free spirit who perceived bonds between man and nature that were subtle and far reaching for both.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A superbly told, moving and challenging story. For anybody remotely interested in the environment, Scottish culture, American history, the art of biography or the art of life, this book is essential' - Scotland on Sunday --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

John Muir (1838-1914) was born and raised in Dunbar, East Lothian. When his family emigrated to Wisconsin in 1849, young John was bought up to hard labour on his father's homestead. A natural inventor, he first discovered the joys of walking, and writing, after an industrial accident nearly blinded him. His journals, articles and lectures helped to develop international awareness of the need to preserve and protect the environment, and led to the foundation of the General Grant, Sequoia and Yosemite national parks in the US, as well as important conservation areas in his native East Lothian. John Muir has been honoured ever since as the father of the modern environment movement.

Product Details

• Paperback: 157 pages
• Publisher: Canongate Pub Ltd; First edition & printing in this form edition (April 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 086241153X
• ISBN-13: 978-0862411534
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,055,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting, if dry, memoir, December 14, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Coplin, Maine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (Paperback)

John Muir, one of the great leaders of the ecological movement in America, tells of growing up on a farm in Wisconsin. He gives detailed information about the wildlife he sees growing up, which is interesting but does get a bit tedious. It was interesting to learn how Muir became interested in being an inventor; before reading this book I hadn't known of his inventions. It gives some insights into how he came to love and appreciate nature, and hints at his later desire to protect all things wild. Near the end of the book he writes, "I wandered away on a glorious botanical and geological excursion, which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not yet completed, always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless, inspiring, Godful beauty." Certainly Muir's writing recalls Thoreau, and his spirit has lived on through the writings of such diverse people as Rachel Carson, Jack Kerouac, and Adolph Murie. This book is not one of his classics, but if you're interested in Muir or life on the plains before they became completely tamed, it's worth reading.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dig Harder, January 31, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (Paperback)

The central symbol of Muir's abusive father is the father's decision to become a lay preacher, and thus his determination to study the Bible all day, while dumping all the farm chores on young John. This puts John at the bottom of a new well, hacking through the rocky ground in search of water. While the holy father urges him on between inspirational readings. One wonders if the father was reading of Jesus's encounter with the woman at the well, offering himself as the living water.

John concluded it's time to get the heck out of Wisconsin and away from his dad, to roam around the mountains and forests of the great unexplored Western U.S., appreciating the water where God placed it in plain view.

Muir's experience of being forced to work like a Calvinist, while his dad sat around like a pietist, presents a juxtaposition which can be applied to other relationships we all come across in our lives. That, and the lesson that you need not be a perpetual victim of a rotten childhood. Muir certainly overcame it.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for learning the "Inner Muir", December 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (Paperback)

I wouldn't recommend this as a first book for those who are interested or curious about Muir (try _My First Summer in the Sierra_ or _1000 Mile Walk_), but it gives a lot of insight, for me at least, on why Muir turned out the way he did. He had a cruel, strict father and had to endure a lot of pain and hardship, which made his latter wilderness travels so much easier and free in comparison.