John Muir developed into America's most persuasive advocate for the mystique and magnificence of the wilderness over the course of a lifetime spent exploring, writing, and actively participating in politics. He was a key player in the development of our national park system and the founder of the Sierra Club in 1892. He was also a master of natural description who portrayed the untamed vistas of the American West with a singular strength and familiarity. His most important and well-liked writings are collected in The Library of America's Nature Writings.Muir's memoir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913), details his childhood in Scotland by the sea, his family's immigration to the United States when he was eleven, and his early interest with the natural world. His renowned story of the spiritual awakening he had when he first saw the mountains and valleys of central California, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911), is as follows: It would be endlessly enjoyable to be bathed in such beauty, observe the ever-changing expressions on the mountain faces, watch the stars, which have a glory here that the lowlander never dreams of, observe the circling seasons, and listen to the music of the waters, winds, and birds. I've never been so strongly drawn to a place as I am to this welcoming, divine wildness.In a masterwork of observation and poetic description, the natural history classic The Mountains of California (1894) celebrates and evokes the region's lakes, forests, flowers, and animals, as well as its glaciers, storms, floods, and geological formations. After ten years of living there, the Range of Light continues to stand out to me as the most breathtakingly gorgeous mountain range I have ever seen.Muir's most well-known book, Stickeen (1909), is a sympathetic account of his Alaskan canine experience. A wealth of essays highlighting different facets of his career, such as his exploration of the Grand Canyon and of what would later become Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, his successful campaigns to preserve the wilderness, his early walking tour of Florida, and the Alaska journey in 1879, round out the book. These essays include "Yosemite Glaciers," "God's First Temples," "Snow-Storm on Mount Shasta," "The American Forests," and the late appeal "
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