BOOKS FROM 1900
John Burroughs
Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers
(1900)
John Burroughs, the Hudson River naturalist, wrote more than 28 books during his lifetime. A popular national figure, he held court at Slabsides, his cabin in the Catskills. Henry James described him as a "more sociable Thoreau." During the Gilded Age, Burroughs' essay on the natural world attracted a wide following. He made friends with the leading men of his day, including Oscar Wilde and Thomas Edison, and accompanied Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to Yellowstone Park.
In 1900 Burroughs published two books, The Light of Day and Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers, a series of essays on skunks, weasels, wild mice and possums. At 63, he thought nothing of scaling a 30-foot hickory tree to observe at close hand a flying squirrel his dog had treed.
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