The Sea Around Us

Published in 1951, The Sea Around Us was a phenomenal success. Rachel Carson's rare ability to combine scientific insight with moving, poetic prose catapulted her book to first place on the New York Times bestseller list, where it remained on top for thirty-one consecutive weeks. It stayed on the list for more than a year and a half and ultimately sold well over a million copies, has been translated into 28 languages, inspired an Academy Award-winning documentary, and won both the 1952 National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal.

This classic work remains as fresh today as when it first appeared. Carson's writing teems with stunning, memorable images — the newly formed Earth cooling beneath an endlessly overcast sky; the centuries of nonstop rain that created the oceans; giant squids battling sperm whales hundreds of fathoms below the surface; and incredibly powerful tides moving 100 billion tons of water daily in the Bay of Fundy. Quite simply, she captures the mystery and allure of the ocean with a compelling blend of imagination and expertise.

Reintroducing a classic work to a whole new generation of readers, this Special Edition features a new chapter written by Jeffrey Levinton, a leading expert in marine ecology, that brings the scientific side of The Sea Around Us completely up to date. Levinton incorporates the most recent thinking on continental drift, coral reefs, the spread of the ocean floor, the deterioration of the oceans, mass extinction of sea life, and many other topics. In addition, acclaimed nature writer Ann Zwinger has contributed a brief foreword.

Today, with the oceans endangered by the dumping of medical waste and ecological disasters such as the Exxon oil spill in Alaska, this illuminating volume provides a timely reminder of both the fragility and the importance of the ocean and the life that abounds within it. Anyone who loves the sea, or who is concerned about our natural environment, will want to read this classic work.

"[Carson has] a rare gift for transmuting scientific fact into lucid, lyrical language." Time

First published in 1951, this work won the National Book Award.

The Lights o' London and Other Victorian Plays is a new selection of five nineteenth-century English plays, none of which has been recently available in print. Each represents vividly and masterfully the three dominant dramatic forms of the Victorian era: melodrama, farce, and comedy. All

were extremely popular with audiences, and much vigour, excitement, and variety of dramatic expression of their time can be found in these texts. Included are Edward Fitzball's The Inchcape Bell; Joseph Stirling Coyne's Did You Ever Send Your Wife to Camberwell?; The Game of Specualtion by George

Henry Lewes; George Robert Sims's he Light's 'o London; and The Middleman by Henry Arthur Jones. The texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with an introduction and detailed annotation.

The late Rachel Carson was for many years a marine biologist and then editor-in-chief of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. She was also the author of Silent Spring, Under the Sea Wind, and At the Edge of the Sea.

Jeffrey Levinton teaches at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is the author of Marine Ecology.

Ann Zwinger is the author of A Desert Country Near the Sea, Beyond the Aspen Grove, and Run, River, Run.