Cover of Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir

Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir

Working closely with Muir's family and with his papers, Wolfe was able to create a full portrait of her subject, not only as America's firebrand conservationist and founder of the national park system, but also as husband, father, and friend. All readers who have admired Muir's ruggedly individualistic lifestyle, and those who wish a greater appreciation for the history of environmental preservation in America, will be enthralled and enlightened by this splendid biography.

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The story follows Muir from his ancestral home in Scotland, through his early years in the harsh Wisconsin wilderness, to his history-making pilgrimage to California.

This book, originally published in 1945 and based in large part on Wolfe's personal interviews with people who knew and worked with Muir, is one that could never be written again. It is, and will remain, the standard Muir biography.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 384 pages

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Liked Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Harriet Beecher Stowe Shares biography, pulitzer, pulitzer biography
  2. Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe Shares biography, pulitzer, pulitzer biography
  3. Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography Shares biography, pulitzer, nonfiction
  4. John Muir: Nature's Visionary Shares biography, nature, nonfiction

“People who read Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir tend to reach for these next.”

  1. John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography
  2. The Life and Times of Cotton Mather
  3. John Keats
  4. Machiavelli in Hell

“If you want more of the same (biography about nature), start with these.”

  1. A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir
  2. Up Close: Rachel Carson
  3. The Story of My Heart: As Rediscovered by Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams
  4. Hike Your Own Hike: 7 Life Lessons from Backpacking Across America

“If it was the pulitzer that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
  2. Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father
  3. A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence
  4. Margaret Fuller: A New American Life

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. John Muir: My Life with Nature
  2. Wallace Stegner and the American West
  3. Gerald Durrell: The Authorized Biography
  4. John Muir: Magnificent Tramp