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River World - Wild Life of the MIssissippi River
by Virginia S. Eifert, Larry Eifert (Editor)
Virginia S. Eifert
River World - Wild Life of the MIssissippi River
by Virginia S. Eifert, Larry Eifert (Editor)
Virginia S. Eifert
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$4.99
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Overview
River World - Wild Life of the Mississippi River
By Virginia S. Eifert
Originally published in 1959 with line drawings by the author, plus a bonus section of Virginia�s photos and extensive research materials from the original publication.
�A thrilling kaleidoscope of nature!�
This is an ambitious book, just as the Mississippi is an ambitious river. Much has been written about our mightiest stream and its effect on our civilization and character. This book differs from its predecessors because it depicts the river almost as if man did not exist. Here is the eternal face of the river, from the ice of the north to the streaming bayou of the south. Here is the great mid-continent flyway of immigrating birds, the muddy moving world of fishes, the shifting banks of the myriad willows, the mysterious bottom land of tiny creatures, the surface film of water striders, the close-by air of the Mayflies, the soaring heights of the eagle. Away from the water, yet molded by it in centuries and in last spring's floods, lie the banks, marshlands, cliffs and bars.
In short, this is the river of nature in all its aspects, deliberately excluding man and his settlements and impositions. It is a thorough book which necessarily means a rich, even crowded book, but it is so varied and changing as it ranges over two thousand miles, through vividly different climates and into the countless forms of life�plants, animals, insects�of all kinds, that it becomes a thrilling kaleidoscope of natural history in its many phases, all bound together by the majesty of our greatest river.
Bonus material: SOUTH TO THS SEA April 8 - 25, 1956
Virginia somehow talked her way onto several working towboats, business boats that simple didn�t carry passengers and didn�t have such things as safety lines. In fact, the boat in this trip journal, the Cape Zephyr, carried over 2,000,000 gallons of gasoline which at one point lost power and plowed into a sand bank. This was found in a binder, unread for decades, unedited and typed with few corrections. Many of these sections show a clear path into River World and her other river books. In other words, these are her creative notes that later books came from.
While it is a chronicle of an amazing trip few women ever experienced in the 1950�s (or now), it also hints at many nature, social, economic, diet and health issues to come in America.
By Virginia S. Eifert
Originally published in 1959 with line drawings by the author, plus a bonus section of Virginia�s photos and extensive research materials from the original publication.
�A thrilling kaleidoscope of nature!�
This is an ambitious book, just as the Mississippi is an ambitious river. Much has been written about our mightiest stream and its effect on our civilization and character. This book differs from its predecessors because it depicts the river almost as if man did not exist. Here is the eternal face of the river, from the ice of the north to the streaming bayou of the south. Here is the great mid-continent flyway of immigrating birds, the muddy moving world of fishes, the shifting banks of the myriad willows, the mysterious bottom land of tiny creatures, the surface film of water striders, the close-by air of the Mayflies, the soaring heights of the eagle. Away from the water, yet molded by it in centuries and in last spring's floods, lie the banks, marshlands, cliffs and bars.
In short, this is the river of nature in all its aspects, deliberately excluding man and his settlements and impositions. It is a thorough book which necessarily means a rich, even crowded book, but it is so varied and changing as it ranges over two thousand miles, through vividly different climates and into the countless forms of life�plants, animals, insects�of all kinds, that it becomes a thrilling kaleidoscope of natural history in its many phases, all bound together by the majesty of our greatest river.
Bonus material: SOUTH TO THS SEA April 8 - 25, 1956
Virginia somehow talked her way onto several working towboats, business boats that simple didn�t carry passengers and didn�t have such things as safety lines. In fact, the boat in this trip journal, the Cape Zephyr, carried over 2,000,000 gallons of gasoline which at one point lost power and plowed into a sand bank. This was found in a binder, unread for decades, unedited and typed with few corrections. Many of these sections show a clear path into River World and her other river books. In other words, these are her creative notes that later books came from.
While it is a chronicle of an amazing trip few women ever experienced in the 1950�s (or now), it also hints at many nature, social, economic, diet and health issues to come in America.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940016781648 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Larry Eifert |
| Publication date: | 04/16/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Virginia S. Eifert may have lived her entire life in Springfield,Illinois, but her passions took her much farther, traveling and learning about North America's natural and human history on a much broader scale. Born in 1911, she was ill through much of high school and never attained a high school diploma. Instead, she began journaling, learning nature on an intimate level, then developing a 'nature news' publication that she distributed around her neighborhood. Soon she was asked to write in this same style for one of the largest newspapers in Illinois, and by the time she was 19 she was asked to create, write, illustrate and edit a monthly magazine for the Illinois State Museum. She continued with this effort for 326 issues until 1966 and her early death at age 55. It seemed Virginia knew she had little time, and let none of it pass quietly. At the museum she also published a series of natural history booklets and wrote for many nationally distributed nature magazines such as Audubon and Nature.
In 1954, she published her first major book for a New York publisher, Dodd Mead, and went on to write 19 more, winning several national awards in the process.
Good creativity is a collaborative effort, and her husband, Herman, who had a masters in English and Ecology, became her built-in proof reader. It seemed she was the wild and untamed nature spirit while he worked to shape her words into readable form. It was a good partnership, but not without friction on both sides. Herman was also Education Curator at the Illinois State Museum, and the two found common ground and inspiration there. It was a rarefied situation that their only son, Larry, found himself in, with friends like Rachel Carson, Edwin Way Teale and many other nature-loving professionals of the times, and it was no wonder Larry Eifert has become a nature painter of some skill - how could he not in such a family.
To learn more about Virginia, go to Virginia.larryeifert.com.
In 1954, she published her first major book for a New York publisher, Dodd Mead, and went on to write 19 more, winning several national awards in the process.
Good creativity is a collaborative effort, and her husband, Herman, who had a masters in English and Ecology, became her built-in proof reader. It seemed she was the wild and untamed nature spirit while he worked to shape her words into readable form. It was a good partnership, but not without friction on both sides. Herman was also Education Curator at the Illinois State Museum, and the two found common ground and inspiration there. It was a rarefied situation that their only son, Larry, found himself in, with friends like Rachel Carson, Edwin Way Teale and many other nature-loving professionals of the times, and it was no wonder Larry Eifert has become a nature painter of some skill - how could he not in such a family.
To learn more about Virginia, go to Virginia.larryeifert.com.
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