Excerpt from The Story of My Boy Hood and Youth This uniform edition of John Muir's Works is published by arrangement with his family and with Professor William Frederic Bade, who at their request acts as supervising editor of Mr. Muir's published and unpublished writings, and who has written the general Introduction which follows. The completeness of the edition is made possible by the kind cooperation of the Century Company, who have permitted the inclusion of the two books published by them, The Mountains of California and The Yosemite. Most of the illustrations are from photographs by Mr. Herbert W. Gleason, who has tramped with Mr. Muir in the Sierra and has visited many other places described in these volumes, from the Wisconsin farm which was Muir's first American home to the California ranch where he spent his last years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

/MUIR JOHN Originally published in 1916, this book is largely comprised of lightly edited diary entries Muir made during his memorable 1867 trek from Kentucky to Florida. Mixing deft observations of the human condition with lyrical responses to the beauties of the natural world, Muir creates his own stirring "song of the Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

In early March 1867, Muir was injured while working at a wagon wheels factory: a tool he was using slipped and struck him in the eye. This accident changed the course of his life. He was confined to a darkened room for six weeks, worried he’d lost his sight forever. When he did recover, the world looked completely different and life had taken on a new meaning for him. Muir later said, "This affliction has driven me to the sweet fields. God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons." From that point on, he determined to "be true to myself" and follow his dream of exploring and studying plants. A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf recounts Muir's walk of approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Indiana to Florida. He did not follow a specific route, only going by the "wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find." This journal is the earliest of Muir's writings and autobiographically bridges the period between "The Story of my Boyhood and Youth" and "My First Summer in the Sierra." John Muir (1838-1914) was a Scottish-American author and naturalist, who is traditionally considered to be the "Father of the National Parks". Born in Dunbar (East Lothian), he spent his childhood exploring the area, and that is where his love of nature first bloomed. In 1849, his family emigrated to Portage, Wisconsin for religious reasons. At 22, he joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison, from which he never graduated, as he preferred to take a multitude of different classes in the variety of subjects he was interested him, such as chemistry, botany and geology. In 1866, whilst working at an Indianapolis wagon wheel factory, he got into a serious accident and almost lost his sight. When he recovered, he decided to follow his dreams and explore nature. In September 1867, he walked from Kentucky to Florida, later describing the trip in his "A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf." In 1868, he boarded a ship to Cuba, then later on sailed to New York City, from whence he travelled to California. From there, he decided to visit Yosemite, which he had long read about. He was one of the first to infer that the landscape there must have been formed by glaciers, a widely disputed theory at the time. Muir wrote countless essays, books and letters recounting his adventures out in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, which have been read by millions. He played a vital role in the preservation of natural areas, and the creations of Yosemite and Sequoia National Park, amongst many others.

"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."--Publisher.