Under the Sea-Wind

by Rachel Carson, Linda Lear (Introduction)

Overview

Rachel Carson—pioneering environmentalist and author of Silent Spring—opens our eyes to the wonders of the natural world in her groundbreaking paean to the sea.

Celebrating the mystery and beauty of birds and sea creatures in their natural habitat, Under the Sea-Wind—Rachel Carson’s first book and her personal favorite—is the early masterwork of one of America’s greatest nature writers. Evoking the special mystery and beauty of the shore and the open sea—its limitless vistas and twilight depths—Carson’s astonishingly intimate, unforgettable portrait captures the delicate negotiations of an ingeniously calibrated ecology.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143104964
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/03/2007
Series:	Penguin Classics Series
Edition description:	New
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	289,763
Product dimensions:	5.07(w) x 7.69(h) x 0.58(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rachel Carson (1907-1964) is considered one of the harbingers of the contemporary environmental movement thanks to her book Silent Spring, a prophetic warning about the misuse of chemical pesticides. Under the Sea-Wind was the first of her distinguished trilogy on the sea. It was followed by The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea, and catapulted Carson to international fame as a nature writer. Coming Spring 2017, the PBS "American Experience" Documentary Rachel Carson.

Linda Lear (introducer) is an environmental historian and biographer and the author of the prize-winning study Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature and Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature.

What People are Saying About This

Al Gore

Rachel Carson was one of the reasons why I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues.... Her picture hangs on my office wall among those of political leaders, presidents, and prime ministers. It has been there for years—and it belongs there. Carson has had as much or more an effect on me than any of them, and perhaps all of them together.

Editorial Reviews

Rachel Carson was one of the reasons why I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues. . . . Her picture hangs on my office wall among those of political leaders, presidents, and prime ministers. It has been there for years, and it belongs there. Carson has had as much or more an effect on me than any of them, and perhaps all of them together.” —Al Gore

From the Publisher

Before there was an Earth Day, before there was a global environmental movement, there was Rachel Carson (1907-64). This Pennsylvania-born zoologist and marine biologist galvanized opinion with her controversial 1962 book Silent Spring, an examination of pesticides that has been credited with the subsequent national ban on DDT. Silent Spring was a bestseller, but Carson's personal favorite among her books was Under the Sea-Wind, her first. Her sentiments didn't derive from the book's initial success: Released just a month before Pearl Harbor, this lyrical study of the shore and the open sea received sterling reviews but sold miserably. This welcome Penguin Classics reprise edition contains a fine introduction by prizewinning Carson biographer Linda Lear.

To assist the Nature Conservancy's "Plant a Billion Trees Campaign," which aims to put the trees in Brazil's Atlantic Forest, Penguin is rereleasing a handful of nature classics.

—Michael Rogers

Library Journal