Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
When Rachel Carson died of cancer in 1964, her four books -- including the environmental classic Silent Spring, which more than thirty years later still sells 25,000 copies annually -- had made her one of the most famous people in America. Her public, which first knew her lyrical writing on the sea, had been galvanized by Carson's passionate revelation of the threats to life posed by indiscriminate pesticide use.
Now, here is a trove of Carson writing never before published or collected, uncovered by Linda Lear, author of the recent and acclaimed Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature. Included are examples of her early and often remarkable nature writing for newspapers and for the Fish and Wildlife Service; journal observations on shore life; letters, including the "Lost Woods" correspondence concerning her efforts to save land in her beloved Maine, and another, written to her physician near the end of her life, that reveals Carson's fight to be told the truth about her cancer even as she was working to expose the hazards of pesticides. Lost Woods also creates a vivid record of Carson's activism. In talks to national groups, she gives astute early criticism of the ties between universities and chemical manufacturers, and skewers her critics with still-timely precision.
A welcome, priceless addition to our knowledge of Rachel Carson, her environmentalism, and her life.