The name of John Muir has come to stand for the protection of wild land and wilderness in both America and Britain. Born in Dunbar in the east of Scotland in 1838, Muir is famed as the father of American conservation, and as the first person to promote the idea of National Parks. Combining acute observation with a sense of inner discovery, Muir's writings of his travels through some of the greatest landscapes on Earth, including the Carolinas, Florida, Alaska and those lands which were to become the great National Parks of Yosemite and the Sierra Valley, raise an awareness of nature to a spiritual dimension.

These journals provide a unique marriage of scientific survey of natural history with lyrical and often amusing anecdotes, retaining a freshness, intensity and brutal honesty which will amaze the modern reader. This collection, including the never-before-published "Stickeen", presents the finest of Muir's writings, and imparts a rounded portrait of a man whose generosity, passion, discipline and vision are an inspiration to this day.