Saving the Earth

Nature Writing: Anthologies

Anthologies may be the best way to get an introduction to nature writing – you’re benefitting from the editors’ selection of material they judge to be the finest writing on the particular theme represented by the anthology or collection you’re reading.

And there’s a world of great ones to choose from!  Library of America is releasing, on Earth Day 2008, its new collection, American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, edited by veteran nature writer Bill McKibben. This collection includes early conservationists, exponents of wilderness areas, ecological visionaries, and contemporary activist/writers.

A companion volume from Library of America is American Sea Writing: A Literary Anthology, collecting writing by Americans on the sea, from Melville to Rachel Carson, Longfellow, John McPhee and Peter Matthiessen.

The granddaddy of all anthologies of nature writing is Nature Writing: The Tradition in English, kept up-to-date through periodic revisions. It includes standards such as Thoreau, Muir, Dillard and Lopez as well as many lesser-known but outstanding nature writers.

Other fine overall collections are The Oxford Book of Nature Writing; At Home on this Earth: Two Centuries of U.S. Women’s Nature Writing; and The Future of Nature: Writing on a Human Ecology from Orion Magazine.

Anthologies with interesting themes are Reading the Roots, American Nature Writing Before Walden; Natural State: A Literary Anthology of California Nature Writing; Nature’s Fading Chorus: Classic and Contemporary Writings on Amphibians; and Coyote at Large: Humor in American Nature Writing.

The great diversity in American nature writing is reflected in the diversity of these wonderful anthologies. It’s a good place to start.

David Yarian, Ph.D.