John Muir 
The Mountains of California (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

Published in 1894, this is a memoir of Muir’s ten years in the Sierra Nevadas, which he first visited in 1868.  The pristine wild landscape, with its unspoiled flora and fauna, made a profound impression, leading him to dedicate his life to its preservation.  Readers can recapture that lost landscape through Muir’s poetic, almost incantatory prose.

About the author

John Muir (1838-1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist and conservationist.  He founded the Sierra Club.  A fierce advocate of wilderness protection, Muir influenced President Theodore Roosevelt’s national park system and, through his passionate, often unabashedly spiritual writings, helped to shape Americans’ attitudes toward wilderness preservation and land stewardship.