John Burroughs was one of the earliest and most articulate pioneers of the United States conservation movement, publishing twenty-eight books on the natural world during the height of the Industrial Revolution. As an author, teacher, and poet, he wrote with intimacy and feeling, illustrating verbal landscapes and providing philosophical insights about the environment. People by the hundreds of thousands relished his writings. The World of John Burroughs focuses not only on his work, but also on Burroughs's personal life. His friends included Walt Whitman, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, and John Muir. The text is enhanced by Burroughs's essays and poems, and, uniquely, by endearing recollections of his granddaughter. With engaging narrative and illuminating photographs by author Edward Kanze, The World of John Burroughs celebrates Burroughs's dedication to studying the world and making nature come to life on the written page.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Friend of Walt Whitman, companion to Theodore Roosevelt, and friendly rival of John Muir, John Burroughs is seldom read today. But in the last decades of the 19th century, his prolific nature essays helped spawn the Nature Study movement and made him an international celebrity. In 1875 Henry James praised his "real genius" for natural history and called him a "more humorous, more available, and more sociable Thoreau." In this illustrated biography, Edward Kanze sketches the trajectory of Burroughs's long career, from his childhood on a farm in the Catskills to his decades in retirement along the Hudson River.
As early as 1871, when his first book of nature essays was published, Burroughs was acclaimed as an American Gilbert White, the pioneering British naturalist and author of The Natural History of Selborne. Readers were charmed by Burroughs's enthusiastic accounts of ordinary walks made extraordinary by keen observation. By the late 1880s, when his first collection of nature essays for children was published, he was one of America's most popular interpreters of the natural world. He kept writing until 1921, when he died at the age of 84.
Edward Kanze, a naturalist and writer, has written an engaging narrative that nevertheless leaves the reader hungry for more information. The photographs, though pleasant, are sometimes tangential: "mourning doves reminded Burroughs of their extinct relations, the passenger pigeons," reads one caption. The biography may succeed as an introduction to Burroughs's life, but in the end one wishes for more of the master's own prose and a better sense of its social context. --Pete Holloran
From Publishers Weekly
During his lifetime, Burroughs (1837-1921) was revered for his popular nature essays and venerated as a prophet of the simple life. In this richly illustrated biography, Kanze, himself a naturalist, presents a straightforward account of the life of the man who was called "the sage of Slabsides," along with passages from Burroughs's essays and poems. But the real essence of his subject is captured in a wealth of marvelous photographs: Burroughs with his family, with such influential friends as Henry Ford, John Muir, Thomas Edison and Theodore Roosevelt, or by himself in the rustic cabin, Slabsides, that he built in the woods near his home in the Poughkeepsie area of New York as a retreat from his wife, who was not sympathetic to what she called her husband's "scribbling." Complementing these historic photographs are Kanze's own glorious color portraits of the world Burroughs observed closely and described in his eloquent essays--the landscape, plants and wildlife of New York's Hudson River Valley.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Too brief,
By A Customer
This review is from: The World of John Burroughs: The Life and Work of One of America's Greatest Naturalists (Paperback)
There is a lot more to the story of John Burroughs than what is included here. We need to understand the social and historical context in which Burroughs lived and wrote, and Kanze does not help us.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fabulous Book Now In Paperback,
By A Customer
This review is from: The World of John Burroughs: The Life and Work of One of America's Greatest Naturalists (Paperback)
It is exciting to see this book reissued in a paperback edition. The new cover is inviting and Ed Kanze's spectacular photographs complement the well-researched and informative text.I hope more people will rediscover John Burroughs as a result of being captured by Kanze's wonderful biography of this important naturalist and writer.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's a wonderful world- A reader from Wisconsin,
By A Customer
This review is from: The World of John Burroughs (Hardcover)
Mr. Kanze's lucid writing and wonderful photographs quickly drew me into the world of John Burroughs. I was not a fan of Burroughs when I first encounter this book, in fact, I had never heard of John Burroughs. I recently read this book again and I walked away with a renewed sense of wonder for the world around me, the birds, plants, trees and people. I can think of no better testament to the efficacy of John Burroughs influence on the way we view the natural world and his personal philosophy than to read his story so well told. I think Mr. Burroughs would have approved. I was also inspired by the notable friends of John Burroughs, people like Theodore Roosevelt, Hernry Ford, Edison, Walt Whitman, who the author so adeptly weaves into a story that recreates a time period that rarely fails to enchant. I highly recommend this book!
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