Nature Writing, N-R
376. NELSON, Richard K. Shadow of the Hunter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1980). The author's third book, fictional tales of Eskimo life -- an attempt to combine ethnography and fiction to give a fuller perspective on the dimensions and realities of Eskimo life than either approach could alone. Near fine in a very good dust jacket with a few short edge tears.
377. NICHOLS, John. The Magic Journey. NY: Holt Rinehart Winston (1978). The uncorrected proof copy of the second, and scarcest, book in Nichols' acclaimed New Mexico trilogy, which began with The Milagro Beanfield War and concluded with The Nirvana Blues. The land and cultures of New Mexico are key elements in all three of the novels. Modest diagonal creasing to front wrapper; literary agency stamp front and rear wrappers; near fine. A very scarce proof: we have only seen one other copy over the years.
378. NICHOLS, John. The Nirvana Blues. NY: Holt Rinehart Winston (1981). The third book in the New Mexico trilogy. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with minor spots of wear at the lower edge. Signed by the author.
379. -. Same title, the uncorrected proof copy. Near fine in wrappers.
380. NICHOLS, John. If Mountains Die. (NY): Knopf, 1981. A later printing of the issue in wrappers of this book of photographs of New Mexico by William Davis, with text by Nichols about the landscape, the history and the community of Taos Valley. Nichols is known primarily as a novelist, in particular for his New Mexico trilogy. Signed by Nichols. Oblong quarto; library stamp front free endpaper; very good.
381. NICHOLS, John. The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn. NY: Holt Rinehart Winston (1982). The hardcover issue of this nonfiction book, a personal odyssey with all roads leading to Taos. Signed by Nichols and illustrated with his photographs. Oblong quarto; fine in a near fine dust jacket.
382. -. Same title, the issue in wrappers. Near fine.
383. NICHOLS, John and ABBEY, Edward. In Praise of Mountain Lions. Albuquerque: Sierra Club, 1984. A pamphlet consisting of talks given by Abbey and Nichols at a Sierra Club-sponsored benefit for the mountain lion. Reportedly printed in an edition of approximately 600 copies. Near fine in stapled wrappers and signed by Nichols.
384. NICHOLS, John. A Fragile Beauty. John Nichols' Milagro Country. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith/Peregrine (1987). Photographs by Nichols of New Mexico, with introductory text by him and excerpts from several of his previously published books. Foreword by Robert Redford. Quarto. Fine in a near fine, spine-faded dust jacket and signed by Nichols.
385. O'HANLON, Redmond. No Mercy. A Journey to the Heart of the Congo. NY: Knopf, 1997. A travel account by the peerless British writer, author of Into the Heart of Borneo and In Trouble Again, among others. O'Hanlon is perhaps the closest direct descendant of the eccentric British travel writers of the 19th century, whose explorations helped create a short-lived empire but also, almost in spite of themselves, enormously enriched the available pool of knowledge about the multitudinous tribal cultures and diverse ethnicities of the world. Fine in a fine dust jacket and signed by the author.
386. -. Same title, the uncorrected proof copy. Long crease to front cover; near fine in wrappers.
387. OLSON, Sigurd F. Listening Point. NY: Knopf, 1966. Fourth printing of this naturalist's second book, originally published in 1958. Olson wrote lyrically of the effect of nature and wilderness on man's psyche, in the tradition of Muir and Thoreau, with his books focusing on the North Country of Quetico-Superior and the Canadian Shield. Among his numerous awards was the John Burroughs Medal in 1974 for Wilderness Days. This copy has a warm two-page inscription by the author. Recipient's bookplate (partly detached) on front flyleaf; otherwise a fine copy in a very good, spine-tanned dust jacket with a faint cup ring and an internally tape-repaired edge tear. Together with a typed letter signed in which Olson conveys some color snapshots to the recipient, one of which -- of Olson's neatly ordered but overburdened manuscript-covered desk -- is retained, taped to the bottom of the page. The letter is folded in thirds for mailing and bears one stray pen mark, not affecting the text; else fine.
388. PEACOCK, Doug. Grizzly Years. NY: Henry Holt (1990). A nonfiction account of Peacock's years tracking and studying the grizzly bear in the wilderness areas of North America. Peacock, a longtime friend of writer Edward Abbey, was the basis for the character George Hayduke in Abbey's novel The Monkey Wrench Gang. Faint remainder stripe to top edge; else fine in a fine dust jacket, with blurbs by William Kittredge, Peter Matthiessen, Jim Harrison, and Terry Tempest Williams, among others. A modern classic of nature writing and environmentalism by one of the key figures of the radical environmental movement.
389. PORTER, Eliot. The Place No One Knew. Glen Canyon on the Colorado. San Francisco: Sierra Club (1963). The first edition of this landmark volume, a photographic elegy. Seventy-two color plates by Porter, captioned by words from such writers as Loren Eiseley, Wallace Stegner, Frank Waters and Aldo Leopold, among many others. Edited, and with a foreword by David Brower that begins: "Glen Canyon died in 1963 and I was partly responsible for its needless death. So were you." Glen Canyon, the astonishing beauty of which is conveyed in some measure in Porter's photographs, was flooded when the Colorado River was dammed, creating Lake Powell. A move to destroy the dam and drain the lake -- long considered an ecological Holy Grail among radical environmentalists, and dismissed as absurd by everyone else -- has, in recent years, been gaining wider, more mainstream support and is now a subject of serious discussion in environmental circles. Folio, approximately 10 1/2" x 14". Fine in a fine dust jacket, the verso of which is a membership appeal for the Sierra Club. The first edition of this book is quite scarce.
390. -. Same title, the revised reissue, San Francisco: Sierra Club (1966). A new section, "Coda," has been added, with eight additional color plates. Fine in a near fine dust jacket.
391. POWELL, John W. Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1875. The first edition of John Wesley Powell's reports of his explorations of the Colorado River and others during the years 1869-1872, with 80 illustrations. Folded into a pocket in the rear pastedown is a map of the area and a profile of the Green and Colorado Rivers as compared to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Powell and his crew were the first group of scientist-explorers to travel the length of the Colorado, including the Grand Canyon, and bring back descriptions, drawings and geologic analyses. His report is a classic of travel narrative in addition to being the key original work on the greatest river of the West. While ostensibly a straightforward narrative of exploration and discovery, with no pretensions or aspirations to being "literature," the Powell report nonetheless was criticized by some members of the expedition for taking literary liberties with the material -- bending the facts to make a more interesting story -- especially in combining events from two different journeys into one seamless narrative. Other accounts were published in the following years, correcting the Powell account, but Powell's remains the first, and most compelling, and is a central document in the exploration of the American West. Laid in is a brochure from the 1969 John W. Powell entennial Exhibit and a commemorative postage stamp. Large quarto; green cloth modestly edgeworn and cracked at the front hinge and starting at rear. Only good, but very uncommon in the first edition in its original binding: most copies that turn up have been rebound completely, as a result of the relatively thin binding and the heavy text block that it must support. All 80 plates present in this volume, as well as the map.
392. POWELL, Lawrence Clark. The River Between. Santa Barbara: Capra Press (1979). The hardcover issue of his second novel, in which "the Arizona landscape mirrors the geography of the soul," according to a reviewer. Fine in a near fine dust jacket and signed by the author.
393. PROULX, Annie. Heart Songs and Other Stories. NY: Scribner (1988). Her first work of fiction, a well-received collection of stories that are firmly rooted among the people and places of northern New England. Tiny spot to a top board edge; still fine in a near fine dust jacket with several edge tears and a few pen marks on the verso of the jacket, not visible on the outside.
394. PROULX, Annie. The Shipping News. NY: Scribner (1993). Her third work of fiction and second novel, which won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize -- a rare literary "double" that firmly established her as one of the preeminent writers in America today. This tale is set in a coastal town of Newfoundland and was highly praised for its sense of place as well as for its characterizations and story. Fine in wrappers.
395. -. Same title, an advance reading excerpt in illustrated wrappers. Prints the first 45 pages of the novel. Fine.
396. PROULX, Annie. Close Range. (NY): Scribner (1999). The advance reading copy of this collection of "Wyoming Stories," one of which, "The Half-Skinned Steer," was selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of the Century. Proulx won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Shipping News. This collection was voted one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, whose editors wrote that "the central character in these short stories is place -- Wyoming's magnificent landscape..." Fine in wrappers.
397. PYLE, Robert Michael. Wintergreen. NY: Scribner (1986). His seventh book, but his first collection of essays, which describe the landscape and wildlife of a little-known region of Washington state, south of the Olympic peninsula. Winner of the John Burroughs Medal. Signed by the author. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with an edge tear at the upper rear flap fold.
398. PYLE, Robert Michael. The Thunder Tree. Lessons from an Urban Wildland. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. A moving personal account of the place where the author first felt a clear connection with the natural world, a hundred year-old irrigation ditch running through the part of Denver where the author grew up. Glowing blurbs by a virtual pantheon of contemporary nature writers. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket.
399. -. Another copy. Fine in a fine, price-clipped dust jacket and signed by the author "with warm wishes."
400. -. Same title. The advance reading copy. Fine in wrappers.
401. PYLE, Robert Michael. Where Bigfoot Walks. Boston/NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. An account of the Bigfoot phenomenon, with much natural history of the Pacific Northwest region in which Bigfoot is most commonly reported to be seen. Fine in a fine dust jacket, and signed by the author. Blurbs by Sue Hubbell and David Quammen, among others.
402. -. Another copy. Fine in a near fine dust jacket, and signed by the author.
403. -. Another copy. Signed by the author. Light corner bumps; else fine in a similar dust jacket with a small "autographed copy" sticker on the front panel.
404. PYNE, Stephen J. Grove Karl Gilbert. A Great Engine of Research. Austin: University of Texas (1980). The author's first book, a biography of one of the great American geologists of the "classic" age of geology, when the science came into its own as a result of the explorations and writings of a handful of intrepid researchers. Pyne, a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and one-time firefighter, has since written several landmark books on fire and on the Antarctic. Near fine in dust jacket.
405. PYNE, Stephen J. How the Canyon Became Grand. (NY): Viking (1998). A review copy of this history and social history of the Grand Canyon. Fine in a fine dust jacket, with several pages of promotional material laid in.
406. QUAMMEN, David. The Song of the Dodo. NY: Scribner (1996). An advance reading excerpt printing two of the ten chapters from this ground-breaking volume focusing on "island biogeography in an age of extinction." This copy belonged to Terry Tempest Williams and bears her ownership signature. Dampstaining to lower edges, not affecting text; near fine in wrappers.
407. -. Another copy, unsigned. Fine in wrappers.
408. -. Same title, the trade edition. Quammen's massive book (700+ pages) was the first effort to apply the insights gained by the study of isolated island biogeographies to the question of the survivability of species in the face of environmental encroachment by humans on mainland populations -- making the leap, obvious in retrospect but original here, that the continued development of human societies was, in effect, turning wilderness habitats into "islands," with the attendant limitations and problems that island species have traditionally faced. Quammen has been called, by one publication, "America's finest nature writer," and the glowing blurbs on this volume -- from such writers as Barry Lopez, Annie Proulx, Edward O. Wilson, Jim Harrison, and others -- include the comment that this is "natural science at its most seductive" and "a monumental work of monumental importance." Fine in a fine dust jacket, and signed by the author.
409. -. Another copy. Fine in a fine dust jacket, and signed by the author in the month of publication.
410. -. Another copy, not signed. Near fine in a fine dust jacket.
411. QUAMMEN, David. Wild Thoughts From Wild Places. (NY): Scribner (1998). The uncorrected proof copy of this collection of essays and short pieces on the natural world, by a writer who has been called "one of the nation's most eloquent spokesmen for nature" (San Francisco Chronicle) and whose work has been characterized as being "as close as science writing gets to a thrilling adventure yarn" (Newsweek). Fine in wrappers, with promotional sheet laid in.
412. RAYMO, Chet. Honey from Stone. NY: Dodd, Mead (1987). Sub-titled "A Naturalist's Search for God," this book seeks to reconcile an age of scientific knowledge with a respect for the transcendent mysteries of nature. Fine in a near fine, price-clipped dust jacket.
413. RIDGEWAY, Rick. The Shadow of Kilimanjaro. NY: Henry Holt (1998), The uncorrected proof copy. An account of the author's walk from the summit of Kilimanjaro to the Indian Ocean. Rear cover creased; near fine in wrappers.
414. ROGERS, Pattiann. Geocentric. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith (1993). Poetry, much of it rooted in perceptions of the natural world, by a writer who, among numerous other awards, won a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. Fine in wrappers.