Pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson explores the wonders of the Earth's oceans in these classics of American science and nature writing. Includes meticulously restored drawings from the original editions, including the nearly 200 illustrations by Bob Hines for
The Edge of the Sea Rachel Carson is perhaps most famous as the author of
Silent Spring, but she was first and foremost a "poet of the sea" and the three books collected in this deluxe Library of America volume are classics of American science and nature writing.
Under the Sea-Wind (1941), Carson's lyrical debut, offers an intimate account of maritime ecology through the eyes of three of the ocean's denizens, the individual lives of sanderling, mackerel, and eel dramatically intertwined in the enduring ebb and flow of the tides.
The Sea Around Us (1951)--a winner of the National Book Award--draws on a wealth of oceanographic, meteorological, biological, and historical research to present its subject on a grand, biospheric scale, revealing not only many mysteries of the still-unfathomed depths, but a reverence for the sea as a source of global climate and of life itself.
Concluding Carson's "sea trilogy,"
The Edge of the Sea (1955) explores the habits of the many small creatures that live on shorelines and in tidepools accessible to any beachcomber: part identification guide, part hymn to ecological complexity, it is a book that conveys the "sense of wonder" in nature for which Carson is justly celebrated.
At a moment when overfishing, pollution, and global warming are causing catastrophic changes to marine environments worldwide, Carson's lyrically detailed accounts of these environments offer a timely reminder of their beauty, fragility, and immense consequence for human life.
Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was born on a family farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania. She earned a master's in zoology at Johns Hopkins before taking a job with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. She published
Under the Sea-Wind (1941),
The Sea Around Us (1951, winner of the National Book Award), and
The Edge of the Sea (1955).
Silent Spring (1962), her exposé of the disastrous ecological effects of pesticide use, was an international bestseller.
A research biologist and cancer survivor,
Sandra Steingraber was inspired to activism by Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring, becoming one of America's leading environmental writers and antipollution advocates. Her books include
Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment (1997),
Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood (2001), and
Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis (2011).
