The wilderness journeys

The name of John Muir has come to stand for the protection of wild land and wilderness in both American and Britain.

Born in Dunbar in the east of Scotland in 1838, Muir is famed as the father of American conservation, and as the first person to promote the idea of national parks.Combining acute observation with a sense of inner discovery, Muir's writings of his travels through some of the greatest landscapes on Earth, including the Carolinas, Florida, Alaska and those lands which were to become the great National Parks of Yosemite and the Sierra Valley, raise an awareness of nature to a spiritual dimension.

These journals provide a marriage of scientific survey and natural history.This collection, including the never-before-published "Stickeen", presents the best of Muir's writings.

He is the author of "The Mountains of California", "Our National Parks", "The Yosemite" and "Steep Trails".