A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf - Softcover

Muir, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1420948768 ISBN 13: 9781420948769

Publisher: Digireads.Com, 2013

Synopsis

Scottish-born naturalist and writer John Muir undertook a daring adventure in 1867, just a few years after the Civil War. After recovering from an injury at a saw mill, Muir decided that he wanted to explore the world. He left his life in Indiana and walked one thousand miles to Florida. Without any real direction or purpose other than to study the flora and fauna, Muir trekked south through Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida with little more than a map, a compass, a brush, soap, and a change of underclothes. He slept under the open stars when he couldn't find a family to take him in, and sometimes Muir walked for forty miles without having food. Though Muir had planned to sail to South America at the end of his journey, he contracted malaria and instead headed to California, where he would ultimately spend the majority of his life. "A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf" is a classic naturalist text set against the backdrop of the post civil war south.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

In 1867, John Muir, age twenty-eight, was blinded in an industrial accident. He lay in bed for two weeks wondering if he would ever see again. When his sight miraculously returned, Muir resolved to devote all his time to the great passion of his life -- studying plants. He quit his job in an Indiana manufacturing plant, said good-bye to his family, and set out alone to walk to the Gulf of Mexico, sketching tropical plants along the way. He kept a journal of this thousand-mile walk and near the end of his life, now famous as a conservation warrior and literary celebrity, sent a typescript of it to his publisher. The result is a wonderful portrait of a young man in search of himself and a particularly vivid portrait of the post-war American South. Here is the young Muir talking with freed slaves and former Confederate soldiers, pondering the uses of electricity, exploring Mammoth Cave, sleeping in a Savannah cemetery, delirious with malarial fever in the home of strangers at Cedar Key, traveling to Havana, Cuba, and sailing to San Francisco Bay. Once in California, Muir promptly set out for Yosemite Valley -- 200 miles away. There Muir found his destiny -- and a mountain range to test his apparently inexhaustible capacity for walking. A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf bridges two Muir classics: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth and My First Summer in the Sierra. 

About the Author

John Muir (1838-1914) was one of the most influential conservationists and nature writers in American history. Founder of the Sierra Club, and its president until his death, Muir was a spirit so free that all he did to prepare for an expedition was to "throw some tea and bread into an old sack and jump the back fence."

About this edition

• Publisher: Digireads.Com
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1420948768
• ISBN 13: 9781420948769
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80