The Story of my Boyhood and Youth is the affecting 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.
Born in East Lothian, Scotland in 1838, Muir was raised by a
fanatically strict, religious father with his numerous brothers and
sisters and loving mother. From an early age, a shy Muir showed
fascination with the natural world, and at aged eleven, his father
announced the family were to move to an American wilderness in
Wisconsin - Muir had a new playground.
His adolescence is spent labouring on the family's grassroots farm.
Working seventeen-hour days, an exhausted yet inquisitive Muir
desperately snatches moments to himself, yearning to explore the
environment around him, secretly studying books on topics other than
religion, and rising at 1 a.m. to pursue his hobby of inventing
intricate time and energy-saving devices - much to his father's
disapproval and everyone else's admiration.
At age twenty-two, Muir takes it upon himself to apply to university,
and does so without financial or moral support from his father. He makes
his way to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study chemistry
and botany, and though never graduating with a degree, he is satisfied
that he had learned all he wanted to there, before completing the rest
of his nature education in 'the university of the wilderness'.
The Story of my Boyhood and Youth includes a new foreword by
Terry Gifford, and offers insight into the development of Muir's
spiritual connection with the natural world, and suggests an explanation
for his passion for freedom in the wilderness, a stark contrast to the
forced rigidity of his early years.
