John Burroughs
John Burroughs was an influential American naturalist and writer, known for his significant contributions to the genre of nature writing. Born and raised on a farm in the Catskill Mountains of New York, Burroughs developed a deep appreciation for the outdoors from an early age. He initially pursued a career in teaching and later worked as a clerk in the U.S. Treasury Department, all while honing his writing skills through magazine essays focused on natural history and philosophy. His first major work, "Wake-Robin," published in 1871, garnered acclaim for its insightful observations of nature and simple country life, establishing him as a prominent figure in nature writing.
Over his lifetime, Burroughs published twenty-two collections of essays and formed notable friendships with other luminaries such as John Muir and Thomas Edison. After his death in 1921, the John Burroughs Association was established to honor his legacy, and the John Burroughs Sanctuary was created to preserve his property in New York. Today, Burroughs is celebrated as a pioneer of nature writing, with many of his works still in print, and the association continues to recognize outstanding contributions to the field through annual awards. He was also posthumously honored as a charter member of the Ecology Hall of Fame.
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John Burroughs
Naturalist
- Born: April 3, 1837
- Birthplace: Near Roxbury, New York
- Died: March 29, 1921
- Place of death: En route from California to New York
Identification: American nature writer
Through his best-selling books, Burroughs raised Americans’ awareness of the beauty of nature and the importance of preserving it.
John Burroughs grew up on a farm in the Catskill Mountains in New York, spending as much time as he could outdoors. Around the age of twenty, he decided that he would try to earn his living as a writer. After a brief teaching career, he spent ten years as a clerk in the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. As a sideline, he published magazine essays about natural history and philosophy, always working to sharpen his writing skills. During these years he published his first book, Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person (1867), the first biography of the great poet, who had also been a government clerk and who was Burroughs’s personal friend.
Burroughs’s first volume of essays, Wake-Robin (1871), was representative of the twenty-two collections that would follow: It featured close observations of natural history and commentary about simple country life, was made up mostly of essays (including such titles as “Birds’ Nests” and “In the Hemlocks”) that had been previously published in magazines, and won immediate acclaim. To Burroughs’s first readers, the genre of nature writing was new and captivating, and Burroughs soon became its most popular practitioner. Sure now that he could live by his pen, he left his government job and moved back to New York, establishing a small fruit farm on the banks of the Hudson River in 1873. He continued to publish essays in some of the most popular magazines of his day and collected them into new books approximately every two years. His titles reveal something of the simple wonder that informs these books: Fresh Fields (1885), Bird and Bough (1906), and Under the Apple-Trees (1916).
Burroughs’s work remained popular throughout his lifetime—a rare achievement for a writer. He formed lasting friendships with many of his admirers, including John Muir, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. Two more friendships led to books: John James Audubon (1902), an appreciation and biography, and Camping with President Roosevelt (1906).
After Burroughs’s death in 1921, the John Burroughs Association was founded and the John Burroughs Sanctuary was established to preserve his property and many of his books in West Park, New York. Burroughs continues to be acknowledged as a pioneer and a master of the genre of nature writing, and many of his books remain in print. The John Burroughs Association presents two annual awards for nature writing published in the preceding year: one to the author of an outstanding natural history essay and one to the author of a distinguished book of natural history. In 1997 Burroughs was named a charter member of the Ecology Hall of Fame in Santa Cruz, California.
Bibliography
Walker, Charlotte Zoë, ed. Sharp Eyes: John Burroughs and American Nature Writing. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
Warren, James Perrin. John Burroughs and the Place of Nature. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006.