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This Henry David Thoreau volume is a compilation of two classic Thoreau titles, Walking and Wild Apples. Walking, or sometimes referred to as The Wild , is based on a lecture by Henry David Thoreau first delivered at the Concord Lyceum on April 23, 1851. Wild Apples, another nature classic is subtitled, The History of the Apple Tree Walking, or sometimes referred to as The Wild , is a lecture by Henry David Thoreau first delivered at the Concord Lyceum on April 23, 1851. It was written between 1851 and 1860, but parts were extracted from his earlier journals. Thoreau read the piece a total of ten times, more than any other of his lectures. Walking was first published as an essay in the Atlantic Monthly after his death in 1862. It's considered it one of his seminal works, so much so, that he once wrote of the lecture, I regard this as a sort of introduction to all that I may write hereafter. Walking is a Transcendental essay in which Thoreau talks about the importance of nature to mankind, and how people cannot survive without nature, physically, mentally, and spiritually, yet we seem to be spending more and more time entrenched by society. For Thoreau walking is a self-reflective spiritual act that occurs only when you are away from society, that allows you to learn about who you are, and find other aspects of yourself that have been chipped away by society. Walking is an important canon in the transcendental movement that would lay the foundation for his best known work, Walden. Along with Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature, and George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature, it has become one of the most important essays in the Transcendentalist movement.

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John Muir (April 21, 1838 - December 24, 1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mile (340 km) John Muir Trail, a hiking trail in the Sierra Nevada, was named in his honor.[2] Other such places include Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir and Muir Glacier. In Scotland, the John Muir Way, a 130 mile long distance route, was named in honor of him. In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. He petitioned the U.S. Congress for the National Park bill that was passed in 1890, establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas. He is today referred to as the Father of the National Parks and the National Park Service has produced a short documentary about his life. Muir has been considered 'an inspiration to both Scots and Americans'. Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity, both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he is often quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams. Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world, writes Holmes. Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals, making his name almost ubiquitous in the modern environmental consciousness. According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified the archetype of our oneness with the earth, [ while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was ...saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism.:403 On April 21, 2013, the first ever John Muir Day was celebrated in Scotland, which marked the 175th anniversary of his birth, paying homage to the conservationist. John Muir's Birthplace is a four-story stone house in Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland. His parents were Daniel Muir and Ann Gilrye. He was the third of eight children: Margaret, Sarah, David, Daniel, Ann and Mary (twins), and the American-born Joanna. In his autobiography, he described his boyhood pursuits, which included fighting, either by re-enacting romantic battles from the Wars of Scottish Independence or just scrapping on the playground, and hunting for birds' nests (ostensibly to one-up his fellows as they compared notes on who knew where the most were located).[11]:25,37 Author Amy Marquis notes that he began his love affair with nature while young, and implies that it may have been in reaction to his strict religious upbringing. His father believed that anything that distracted from Bible studies was frivolous and punishable. But the young Muir was a restless spirit and especially prone to lashings.

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