Travels in Alaska

by John Muir

Published 1 January 1915
John Muir first saw Alaska in 1879, only twelve years after it was purchased from Russia by the United States. Four more times, in 1880, 1881, 1890, and 1899, he was drawn back to this land of rivers and glaciers, sunsets and northern lights, campfires and Arctic stars. Few people have lived so many adventures, yet Muir was not a mere collector of adventure; the hazards he encountered - and many were spine tingling - came as a result of his intense desire to examine new aspects of the natural world.

My First Summer in the Sierra

by John Muir

Published 1 February 1911
Muir kept this Journal on his first extended trip to Yosemite in 1869. Here he faithfully recorded his impressions of the dazzling animal and plant life he encountered in the magnificant Sierra.

The Mountains of California

by John Muir

Published 1 March 1882
When John Muir traveled to California in 1868, he found the pristine mountain ranges that would inspire his life’s work. The Mountains of California is the culmination of the ten years Muir spent in the Sierra Nevadas, studying every crag, crook, and valley with great care and contemplation.

Bill McKibben writes in his Introduction that Muir "invents, by sheer force of his love, an entirely new vocabulary and grammar of the wild . . . a language of ecstasy and exuberance."

The Mountains of California
is as vibrant and vital today as when it was written over a century ago.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic includes the photographs and line drawings from the original 1898 edition.

The Yosemite

by John Muir

Published 1 April 1912
In the spring of 1869, John Muir was looking for means of support to fund his explorations of California’s Central Valley region. A ranch owner offered him a job herding sheep in the Sierra Nevada. As he explored the region, he jotted down his keen observations of the scenic countryside, and he eventually became a guide for some of Yosemite’s most famous visitors, including Ralph Waldo Emerson. Muir documented these experiences in The Yosemite, first published in 1912. It is at once a vivid, accurate description of the land and a passionate homage to nature.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic is a facsimile of the 1912 edition and includes the original illustrations.