The World of John Burroughs

During his lifetime, Burroughs (1837-1921) was revered for his popular nature essays and venerated as a prophet of the simple life. In this richly illustrated biography, Kanze, himself a naturalist, presents a straightforward account of the life of the man who was called ``the sage of Slabsides,'' along with passages from Burroughs's essays and poems. But the real essence of his subject is captured in a wealth of marvelous photographs: Burroughs with his family, with such influential friends as Henry Ford, John Muir, Thomas Edison and Theodore Roosevelt, or by himself in the rustic cabin, Slabsides, that he built in the woods near his home in the Poughkeepsie area of New York as a retreat from his wife, who was not sympathetic to what she called her husband's ``scribbling.'' Complementing these historic photographs are Kanze's own glorious color portraits of the world Burroughs observed closely and described in his eloquent essays--the landscape, plants and wildlife of New York's Hudson River Valley. (Dec.)