Audiobook · read by volunteers
Mountains of California
John Muir (1838–1914)
Read by Robert Garrison, Lizzie Driver, Julian Jamison, Scott Mather, J. M. Smallheer, Chris Chapman, Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), Laurie Anne Walden, Caitlin Kelly, Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023) · 19 chapters · 10 h 19
About the book
John Muir climbed mountains the way other men take a walk. In this book he leads us into the Sierra Nevada of California, and the pages are full of what he saw: glaciers that carved the valleys, snow that shaped the forests, rivers that began in drifts of white, trees of astonishing age, and wild animals that went about their business as he watched. He writes as a scientist who notices the details and as a poet who cannot help rejoicing. Muir's love of the mountains and his sense of their hidden order has inspired readers and conservationists for generations. Nineteen chapters and a little over ten hours offer an unforgettable guide to a landscape that still shapes the American imagination.
Introduction
John Muir was born in Scotland in 1838 and died in 1914. He emigrated to the United States as a boy and became one of the first modern preservationists. His essays, letters and books about his adventures in the wild, above all in the Sierra Nevada of California, were read by millions and are still popular today. He campaigned directly to save Yosemite Valley and other wilderness areas.
The Sierra Club, which he founded, has become one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States, and his writings strongly influenced the creation of the national parks and the American idea of wilderness. The Mountains of California, published in 1894, was his first book, and it gathers essays on the range's glaciers, snow, forests, floods and wildlife. Muir argued that the valleys had been shaped by ice, a theory that was disputed at the time, and he describes the evidence with obvious pleasure.
His prose is full of enthusiasm. He tends to write in long, flowing sentences, and he is at his best when describing a storm or a view from a summit. Readers should be aware that, like many writers of his period, he sometimes expresses views about people that are now seen as outdated.
This recording was made by LibriVox volunteers, who share the reading of the nineteen chapters. It lasts about ten and a quarter hours. Why listen? To enjoy a landscape through the ears of one of its great admirers.
Public domain
John Muir died in 1914: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text