This coming October, The Library of America will publish a new boxed set of their Rachel Carson Collection. I doubt that most regular readers of The Well-read Naturalist need any introduction to Rachel Carson or her work, but but for those who might be just beginning their journey into the wonders of natural history, she was a marine biologist whose trilogy of books about the sea have introduced the wonders of the ocean and the challenges facing it to readers all around the world. Her later book Silent Spring rang the bell on the dangers of synthetic pesticides to the environment and led to the banning of DDT and other dangerous chemicals. It is by no means an overstatement to write that she was one of the most important, most highly skilled, and most effective science communicators of the twentieth century. Indeed, her work and her stalwart determination to bring what she had discovered to the attention of the public, even in the face of fierce and at times slanderous opposition by corporate and political interests, have made her an inspiration to conservationists, environmentalists, and naturalists ever since.
This lovely new boxed set includes both volumes of The Library of America’s collections of her published books, as well as selection of her articles, letters and speeches.
Volume One, titled Silent Spring & Other Writings, includes Silent Spring, letters to a wide range of correspondents, including Edwin Way Teale, Dorothy Freeman, and E.B. White, and speeches, including her speech accepting the Audubon Medal of the National Audubon Society.
Volume Two includes The Sea Trilogy – being Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us, and The Edge of the Sea – as well as other writings, including “Shad Going Way of the Buffalo.”
It should be noted that even though the official publication date for this new set is 7 October 2025, The Library of America has made an announcement that “Sets have arrived in our warehouse. Order yours today, and it will be shipped to immediately—ahead of the publication date.” Therefore all those who want to secure one of these superbly edited, extensively annotated, and beautifully bound and cased sets need not await the formal publication date to do so.
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