Our National Parks by Muir, John - 1902

This item is currently on reserve; please contact dealer for more details. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company [The Riverside Press], 1902. First Edition, 4th printing. Very Good. Inscribed and SIGNED by Muir [8.25x5.5in]; [5], 370 pp., 12 plates including frontispiece image of Sequoias Mariposa Grove, map and images of western national parks, index; Forest green cloth covers with gilt lettering on front and spine, gilt illustration of Sequoia forest on front and seed cone on spine, top edge gilt, all edges trimmed; Minor shelf wear to edges and corners, corners lightly bumped and rubbed through on bottoms, light soiling, spots along edges and covers, slight fading of spine, bright gilt, inscribed by John Muir on front end paper "Going to the Mountains is going home. John Muir, Martinez, California April 1903", prior owner pencil signature on front end paper. [Kimes 237, BAL 14752]. John Muir (1838-1914) was a well-known naturalist, preservationist, author, founder of the Sierra Club. His writings and advocacy to Congress led to establish Yosemite as a National Park in 1890, but, unlike Yellowstone, under California State control. Over the next decade, Muir founded the Sierra Club to promote environmental protections to wilderness areas, wrote several books on his travels and developed influence with government and business leaders. In 1903, on a trip to Yosemite with President Theodore Roosevelt, he described the State's mismanagement and exploitation of the National Park an pressed for Federal control, and in 1905 Yosemite was expanded and placed under the control of the Department of Interior. Muir was a great influence on Roosevelt in the preservation and the expansion of the National Parks througthout the West.

This book is a collection of 10 articles previously published in the Atlantic Monthly from August 1897 to September 1901. Seven of the articles focus on the Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Another chapter promotes Yellowstone National Park and two open and close the book on protecting the forests of the West. In chapter one, Muir states, "The tendency nowadays to wander in the wilderness is delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life." He goes on to promote the wilderness parks and reservations of Mount Rainier and the Grand Canyon. In the last chapter, he closes with one of his now-famous statements: "Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would be destroyed, ... Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries ... God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools, - only Uncle Sam can do that."

According to the Bibliography of American Literature (BAL), the publisher issued four printings during 1901 with 'Published November 1901' on the copyright page. The first three printings have 1901 on the title page and the last printing of December 20th was dated 1902 on the title page. This 1902 copy is the 4th printing of the First Edition.