“THEIR LITHE BUSHY SUMMITS WERE MINGLING TOGETHER IN PERFECT ECSTACY”: FINELY BOUND LIMITED EDITION OF JOHN MUIR’S WRITINGS, WITH MANUSCRIPT LEAF

MUIR, John. The Writings of John Muir. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916. Ten volumes. Octavo, original three-quarter brown morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut. $11,500.

“Manuscript Edition,” number 100 of 750 sets, with original manuscript leaf entirely in Muir’s hand bound in. Illustrated with over 100 plates, including engraved frontispieces (most hand-colored), portraits, photographs, and maps. Handsomely bound by the Riverside Press.

"John Muir was for many years California's best known nature-writer" (Zamorano Eighty 56), and became the acknowledged leader of the forest conservation movement in the United States. This set includes Muir's major works: The Mountains of California, Our National Parks, My First Summer in the Sierra, and others, as well as The Life and Letters of John Muir. The manuscript leaf, a page from Muir's Mountains of California (Volume 4, page 280 in this set), measures approximately eight by six inches and reads “…comparatively young their lithe bushy summits were mingling together in perfect ecstasy. I am in the habit of climbing such trees to examine their flowers & cones therefore I reached the summit without experiencing the slightest difficulty & never before did I enjoy so noble an exhileration the slender tops fairly flapped in the…” The manuscript version has a number of differences from the one eventually published. BAL 14774.

Fine condition.