Nature Writing, S-V
416. SCHALLER, George B. Serengeti. A Kingdom of Predators. NY: Knopf, 1972. A volume focusing on five African predators, observed by Schaller over a three and a half year period. Quarto; heavily illustrated with color photographs by the author. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
417. SCHALLER, George B. Golden Shadows, Flying Hooves. NY: Knopf, 1973. An account of his three years in Tanzania studying the behavior of lions in the wild, which led to the publication of the above volume on Serengeti. Very good in a near fine dust jacket. Surprisingly uncommon.
418. SCHALLER, George B. Stones of Silence. Journeys in the Himalayas. NY: Viking (1980). An account of six years of exploration in the Himalayas, one journey in the company of Peter Matthiessen, who documented their trip in The Snow Leopard. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with one 2" closed edge tear on the rear panel.
419. SCHELL, Jonathan. The Fate of the Earth. NY: Knopf, 1982. An important essay that generated an enormous amount of coverage and some controversy when first published in The New Yorker. It is an extended reflection on, and study of, the fate of the earth in the wake of a nuclear war; its publication was the first time since John Hersey's famous account of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing in 1946 that The New Yorker devoted an entire issue to a single essay. With an intimate inscription from a leading nature writer. Fine in a near fine dust jacket.
420. -. Same title. The uncorrected proof copy. Spine-sunned; near fine.
421. SCHWIEBERT, Ernest. Death of a Riverkeeper. NY: Dutton (1980). Fishing stories by a noted fisherman-writer, whose massive book on trout is the definitive work on the subject. Fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
422. SHEPARD, Paul. Nature and Madness. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books (1982). The uncorrected proof copy. Shepard traces the lifecycle of habitat destruction to the conclusion that injury to the planet is a symptom of human psychopathology, rather than a result of rational economic decisions. Fine in wrappers.
423. SILKO, Leslie Marmon. Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit. NY: Simon & Schuster (1996). A collection of essays on Native American life, including a photographic "Essay on Rocks" and several that touch in some way on land claim and land use issues. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
424. SNYDER, Gary. Riprap. (Ashland): Origin, 1959. His first book, a collection of poems printed in Japan and published in an edition of 500 copies in paste papers, sewn Japanese style. Snyder, a poet closely associated with the Beat movement and a longtime friend of writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, has been one of the leading voices in articulating a fundamental revision of Western notions about man's relationship to the land and his environment in general, borrowing from tribal cultures and Oriental mystical traditions in his poetry, translations and essays. Inscribed by Snyder on the title page and bears an additional ownership signature there. Covers sunned, and paste papers separating a bit; a very good copy.
425. SNYDER, Gary. Myths & Texts. (NY): Totem/Corinth (1960). The correct first issue of his second book. One of 1100 copies, this copy signed by the author in the year of publication. Previous owner name; very good in stapled wrappers. An uncommon book, and especially so with a contemporary signature.
426. SNYDER, Gary. Earth House Hold. (NY): New Directions (1969). Essays on spirituality and the natural world. The title of the collection is a play on the root meanings of the word "ecology." Trace shelfwear to the cloth at the spine extremities; else fine in a very near fine dust jacket with mild foxing on the flaps. A very nice copy of a title whose fragile jacket often chips and tears.
427. -. Same title, the uncorrected proof copy of the first British edition (London: Cape, n.d.). Prepared from second printing sheets of the American edition. Fine in wrappers with a Compliments of the Publisher card laid in. Very scarce.
428. SNYDER, Gary. Sours of the Hills. (n.p.): (Samuel Charters) (1969). Portents 15. A broadside, folded once (by design), measuring 15 3/4" x 14 1/2" unfolded. Brown card stock, with text and an ink wash drawing. 1/300 copies. Fine.
429. SNYDER, Gary. Songs for Gaia. (Port Townsend): Kah Tai Alliance (1979). A poetry collection, printed in an edition of 300 copies, signed by the author. Snyder, a Beat poet who figured prominently in the novels of Jack Kerouac, has become in the last three decades one of the foremost exponents of an ecologically conscious "literature of place." His collection, Turtle Island -- which took its title from a Native American name for planet Earth -- won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1975. This collection, similarly, takes its title from the name of a Greek goddess who in recent years has been associated with a scientific hypothesis that views the Earth as a single, self-regulating organic entity rather than as a collection of largely independent, randomly organized closed systems. Cloth covered boards; fine without dust jacket, as issued.
430. SNYDER, Gary. Tree Song. San Francisco: Linden, 1986. A broadside poem, attractively printed on Arches Cover, measuring 8" x 10", together in a cardstock folder with a photograph by Michael Mundy. Of a total edition of 226, this is one of 50 numbered copies signed by the author and photographer. Fine, in the original printed envelope.
431. SNYDER, Gary. Left Out in the Rain. Poems 1947-1984. Berkeley: North Point Press, 1986. The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of poetry, which includes early work dating from up to 13 years before his first book. Slight wrinkling to bottom page edges and a couple of spots to the front cover; near fine in wrappers.
432. SNYDER, Gary. The Practice of the Wild. Berkeley: North Point (1990). The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of essays on wilderness and nature and man's spiritual relation to the natural world. Fine in wrappers.
433. SNYDER, Gary. "The lessons we learn from the wild become the etiquette of freedom..." Berkeley: Black Oak, 1990. Broadside excerpt from The Practice of the Wild, printed by Okeanos Press on the occasion of a reading by the author at Black Oak Books. 9" x 11 1/2". Fine.
434. SNYDER, Gary. No Nature. NY: Pantheon (1992). The uncorrected proof copy of a collection of new and selected poems. According to the publisher, this proof was never formally distributed, as copies did not return from the printer until after the finished book was ready. Fine in wrappers.
435. -. Another copy. Light stain on rear cover; near fine in wrappers.
436. -. Another copy. Rippling to bottom page edges; very good in wrappers.
437. SPRAGG, Mark. Where Rivers Change Direction. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press (1999). The author's first book, a collection of essays about growing up in Wyoming near the Continental Divide. Terry Tempest Williams, Larry McMurtry, Gretel Ehrlich blurbs, among others. Fine in a fine dust jacket and signed by the author.
438. STEGNER, Wallace. "The Marks of Human Passage" in This is Dinosaur. NY: Knopf, 1955. A volume edited by Stegner, and for which he provides one chapter and the foreword. The final chapter, "The National Park Idea," is written by Alfred A. Knopf, the publisher. Fine in a good dust jacket with several small chips and edge tears.
439. STEGNER, Wallace. Angle of Repose. Garden City: Doubleday, 1971. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by the author who redefined the literature of the American West. Small owner gift inscription and offsetting to front flyleaf, fading to spine cloth and some loss of gilt lettering; still near fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket. A much-nicer-than-usual copy of a not particularly well-made book (Doubleday was earning a reputation at that time for breaking new ground in the cheapness of its book production), and an important title. A Modern Library book of the century.
440. STEGNER, Wallace. On the Teaching of Creative Writing. (Hanover): University Press of New England (1988). A small volume printing questions and answers from the discussion portions of a series of talks Stegner gave at Dartmouth College in 1980. Stegner not only reinvigorated and helped define the writing of the American West, he also, as an editor and particularly as the head of the Writing Workshop at Stanford University, helped educate a whole generation of writers whose books carried on and expanded that tradition, including Wendell Berry, Larry McMurtry, Ken Kesey and others. Fine without dust jacket, as issued. This copy is signed by the author.
441. STEGNER, Wallace. "If we cannot live in harmony..." (n.p.): Feathered Serpent Press, 1995. A DeGolyer Library Broadside, printing text from Memo to the Mountain Lion, with a two-color illustration of a mountain lion. 10" x 14". Very faint edge creasing that would disappear framed; else fine.
442. STEGNER, Wallace. Marking the Sparrow's Fall. NY: Henry Holt (1998). A posthumous collection of Stegner's writings on the American West, edited and introduced by his son, Page Stegner. This is the uncorrected proof copy. Fine in wrappers.
443. STEINBECK, John and RICKETTS, E.F. Sea of Cortez. NY: Viking, 1941. An advance issue of this lengthy account of an expedition to the Gulf of California by Steinbeck and Ricketts, a marine biologist -- their collaboration being a rare combination of literary effort and scientific analysis. This is a salesman's promotional dummy copy, created in the days when traveling publishers' reps would have to try to pre-sell forthcoming titles, before the books themselves were available for inspection; publishers created dummies of the upcoming books for the reps to show to prospective buyers, a practice that has died since the printing and distribution of prepublication "advance reading copies" and "galleys" has become widespread. Prints two pages from the Introduction, 4 pages from Chapter Two (later incorporated into Chapter 4 in the finished book), and minor extracts from the Appendix, which were altered prior to publication; all the other pages are blank. The top edge is stained green rather than the orange of the published book, and the dust jacket is blank on the flaps and rear panel. Near fine in darkened dust jacket. Salesman's dummies were done in very small quantities, and dummies of books by major 20th century authors seldom turn up on the market. In a custom quarter leather slipcase and chemise.
444. -. Same title, the trade edition. Published in an edition of 7500 copies. This is a fine copy in a near fine dust jacket, slightly rubbed at the corners. A very attractive copy.
445. THOREAU, Henry D. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1849. The first edition, first issue of his first book, an account inspired by an excursion with his brother, John, in 1839 and colored by John's death in 1842. Published at his own expense two years after leaving Walden. One of 550 copies with the 1849 date, of a total edition of 1000 copies. (The remaining 450 copies, initially unbound, were sold to Ticknor & Fields who issued them in 1862.) Three lines were omitted from page 396 in the printing, which are sometimes found appended in Thoreau's hand; they are not in this copy. Contemporary rebinding, quarter leather with raised spine bands and marbled boards. Penciled owner initials on blank; boards mottled; the text block itself has a couple instances of foxing and is otherwise fine. In a custom folding chemise and gilt-stamped quarter leather slipcase.
446. -. Same title, the Book of the Month Club edition. (New York: BOMC, 1996). Fine in pictorial boards.
447. THOREAU, Henry D. Walden, or A Life in the Woods. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1854. His second book, the last published in his lifetime -- perhaps the most famous nature book published in American history, the one to which all since have been compared, and the starting point for the reconsideration of man's place in nature that has since grown into a movement toward an ecological consciousness as part of everyday life. Thoreau was an avid walker, an astute observer of nature (his observations of how plant seeds are spread led to his theory of forest succession, now widely accepted as a key contribution to our understanding of the subject), and a strong proponent for the natural world, in which he saw the revelation of the Divine. It was in that arena -- as perhaps our most articulate interpreter of the small, specific, tangible elements of nature as embodiments of the Divine -- that his work made its strongest mark and attained its longevity and ongoing relevance. So many of Thoreau's utterances sound so perfectly keyed to modern times that he was clearly mining a vein of universal and timeless insights when he wrote Walden, and there is probably no higher praise that can be given to a writer of natural history today than to be compared to Thoreau. Walden was printed in an edition of 2000 copies, with varying sets of ads bound in at the rear, ranging from April to October, 1854. This is a fine copy, rebound in an attractive, three quarter leather binding, with the ads in the back dated April, 1854, the earliest sequence. A classic, and a book that lends credence to the notion that nature writing -- as we understand it, with its overtones of philosophical reflection and spiritual inquiry -- is a peculiarly American genre.
448. TURNER, Frederick. Spirit of Place. The Making of an American Literary Landscape. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books (1990). The uncorrected proof copy. Turner gives chapters to writers such as Cather, Faulkner, Silko, Thoreau, Twain, Steinbeck and others, tracing "the process by which our writers took imaginative possession of the land." Stray pen mark to spine; else fine in wrappers.
449. VAN DER POST, Laurence. The Lost World of the Kalahari. NY: Morrow, 1958. An account of a South African writer's travels into the desert to seek out the last remaining Bushmen -- part ethnography, part spiritual quest. Van Der Post's depiction of the Bushmen, and the degree of their closeness with their environment, is an attempt to redefine for his readers, and for Westerners in general, the possibilities for our relationship to the natural world. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket with several short edge tears.