Young John Muir: An Environmental Biography

The life and writings of early environmentalist John Muir (1838-1914) taught Americans to appreciate the Yosemite Valley, the redwood, the glacier and the beauty of California. This scholarly and interpretive work takes on Muir's life from his birth in Scotland to his first years in California (up to 1872), along with his writings about those years. Holmes (who teaches history and literature at Harvard) sets out and glosses relevant facts, but his abiding interest is in theories, implications and readings. With attention and talent, Holmes primarily writes for other experts on Muir and for the emerging field of literary studies now dubbed ecocriticism. Though the wealth of knowledge and information here might attract some ambitious lay readers, the tone and aims seem purposefully academic. Holmes describes Muir's childhood in Scotland and Wisconsin through (among other lenses) Wordsworth's Prelude and the child development theories of Edith Cobb, Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott. He places Muir's stories of his own boyhood in ""the wilderness/coming-of-age tradition"" exemplified by Faulkner's ""The Bear."" He reads and rereads the emotional implications of Muir's correspondence with Emily Pelton and Jeanne Carr, and connects Muir's walks through Georgia's fauna and flora in 1867-1868 to particular readings of Paradise Lost. One appendix comprises new textual scholarship on Muir's important My First Summer in the Sierra; another offers more on Klein and Winnicott. (Apr.)