THOREAU'S WILDFLOWERS

A glamorous Yale University Press publication which takes us back to New England 150 years ago and a rich botanical world that still graces the landscape today. Some of Henry David Thoreau's most beautiful nature writing was inspired by the woodlands, meadows and marshes of his native Concord where he observed plants, animals, the weather and his neighbours, recording his observations in his Journal. Beginning in 1850, the year he turned 33, his botanical observations became more systematic and he learned the botanical taxonomy as he faithfully recorded, dated and described his sightings of the floating water lily, the elusive wild azalea, and the late autumn foliage of the scarlet oak. This inviting selection of his best flower writing is arranged by day of the year and accompanied by his philosophical speculations illuminating his spirituality, belief in nature's correspondence with the human soul and man?s connection with the earth and with immortality. The publication features more than 200 of his black and white drawings originally created by Barry Moser for his first illustrated book 'Flowering Plants of Massachusetts'. The book also presents 'Thoreau as Botanist', an essay by Ray Angelo. Pick your way through this meadow of flowers and flowering plants and meet the bumblebee on a cow-wheat blossom which 'sounded like an engine's whistle far over the woods - then like an aeolian harp...' We are transported not only through the beauty of his language but his observations of many plants unfamiliar to the European reader. Useful index, 300pp, illus.