Books in the John Muir: The Eight Wilderness-Discovery Books series

The Story of my Boyhood and Youth is the memoir of the now internationally renowned John Muir, a Scottish-American boy subject to a most unusual upbringing, his transition into adulthood, and the path that led him to petition for the concept of protected national parks.

John Muir inadvertently traps us in his web of enthusiasm for the beauty and significance of Mother Nature. The Yosemite gives us the tools to construct a detailed mental map of the Sierra, and leaves us with the resolution to be more compassionate and environmentally mindful.

It is in A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf that we are given clues towards John Muir's future trailblazing movement for environmental conservation, and teaches us as much about Muir himself as it does the ecosystems in the wilderness across those 1,000 miles.

In the summer of 1869, John Muir joined a group of shepherds in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada mountains, that he might study and expand his knowledge of the plants, animals and rocks he found there. My First Summer in the Sierra is the colourful diary he kept while tending sheep and exploring the wilderness.

The Mountains of California not only details John Muir's visits to the magnificent mountains along the Sierra Nevada Range, but also the stunning glaciers, forests and wildlife he encounters; the enthusiasm contained within these pages is infectious.

Travels in Alaska details three of John Muir's trips to Alaska: 1879, 1880 and 1890, each one embedded with stunning metaphors, a dedicated love of Mother Nature and a desire to protect and preserve wildness, this book is an insight not only into Alaska, but into Muir himself.

Steep Trails is a mix of John Muir's essays and adventure narratives. As Terry Gifford writes in the foreword, 'Most of Steep Trails' chapters are dispatches from Muir as travelling correspondent with a mixture of insights into local cultures, criticism of pollution and enthusiasm for everything wild.'

First published in 1901, Our National Parks is possibly the bestselling book of John Muir's wilderness-discovery titles and was certainly the most influential published in his lifetime. Muir's conservationist essays were a first at the time of publication, and are still highly applicable to twenty-first life.