The Last Unicorn: A Search for One of Earth's Rarest Creatures

DeBuys, William

ISBN 10: 0316232866 / ISBN 13: 9780316232869

Published by Little, Brown and Company, 2015

About this Item

Hardcover, with dust jacket. First Edition. Signed and also inscribed. 8vo(6.25 x 9.5 in.). Quarter-bound with yellow paper and black paper. Stamped gilt titling on the spine. Surface is clean. Three corners angle in but are still solid. There is a small open ding at the front spine bottom. Pages are clean but have faint toning on the outside edges. Jacket is yellow wraps with stylized black lettering. Back cover is full with praise and description of the book's contents. Edges are smooth. Three spots on front are missing color. Back of the front jacket shows exposure to moisture on inside-back. Overall, in fair condition. The highlight is the signature of Mr. deBuys and his salutation to two people. This is an engaging story, well told, of an expedition in search of a rare animal in Laos called a Saola. Of course, the story is more about the journey rather than reaching a destination.

Seller Inventory # 001737

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Last Unicorn: A Search for One of Earth's Rarest Creatures
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0316232866
• ISBN 13: 9780316232869
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fair
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fair
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Nature and Ecology

About this title

Synopsis

An award-winning author's quest to find and understand a creature as rare and enigmatic as any on Earth.

In 1992, in a remote mountain range, a team of scientists discovered the remains of an unusual animal with exquisite long horns. It turned out to be a living species new to Western science -- a saola, the first large land mammal discovered in fifty years.

Rare then and rarer now, a live saola had never been glimpsed by a Westerner in the wild when Pulitzer Prize finalist and nature writer William deBuys and conservation biologist William Robichaud set off to search for it in central Laos. Their team endured a punishing trek up and down white-water rivers and through mountainous terrain ribboned with the snare lines of armed poachers who roamed the forest, stripping it of wildlife.

In the tradition of Bruce Chatwin, Colin Thubron, and Peter Matthiessen, The Last Unicorn chronicles deBuys's journey deep into one of the world's most remote places. It's a story rich with the joys and sorrows of an expedition into undiscovered country, pursuing a species as rare and elusive as the fabled unicorn. As is true with the quest for the unicorn, in the end the expedition becomes a search for something more: the essence of wildness in nature, evidence that the soul of a place can endure, and the transformative power of natural beauty.

About the Author

William deBuys is the author of eight books, including River of Traps, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Pulitzer Prize nonfiction finalist; Enchantment and Exploitation; The Walk (an excerpt of which won a Pushcart Prize in 2008); and A Great Aridness. He lives in New Mexico.