A Republic of Rivers

In A Republic of Rivers, John Murray offers the first comprehensive anthology of nature writing in Alaska and the Yukon, ranging from 1741 to the present. Many of the writers found here are major figures--John Muir, Jack London, Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, and Edward Abbey--but we also discover the voices of missionaries, explorers, mountain-climbers, Native Americans, miners, scientists, backpackers, and fishermen, each trying to capture something of the beauty of this still pristine land, to render in their own words the spell that the country casts upon them. Most of these selections have never appeared in any anthology and some entries--particularly those written by early American and Russian explorers--have never been available to general readers.