The Serpents of Paradise A Reader [Paperback]

This book is different from any other Edward Abbey book. It includes essays, travel pieces and fictions to reveal Ed's life directly, in his own words.

The selections gathered here are arranged chronologically by incident, not by date of publication, to offer Edward Abbey's life from the time he was the boy called Ned in Home, Pennsylvania, until his death in Tucson at age 62. A short note introduces each of the four parts of the book and attempts to identify what's happening in the author's life at the time. When relevant, some details of publishing history are provided.

Edward Abbeywas born in 1927 in Pennsylvania. He earned graduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of New Mexico. He wroteDesert Solitairewhile working as a Park Ranger in Utah. He is also the author ofThe Monkey Wrench Gang, Abbey's Road, andThe Journey Home, among others. He died in March 1989.

The announcement of a new Abbey book, whether essays or fiction, stirs a personal craving no other current American writer can satisfy. Los Angeles Book Review

Abbey was a true independent, a self-declared extremist and desert mystic,' and a hell of a good writer. . . . John Macrae has wisely chosen to organize these outstanding essays, travel pieces, and works of fiction to parallel events in Abbey's unusual life. Booklist

A record as important and lovely as Muir's and Thoreau's. William McKibben, author of The End of Nature

A splendid summary of his best work. . . . Anyone who doesn't already know his work will find this volume, culled from more than a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, an addictive introduction. Publishers Weekly

Abbey was many things as a writer, and his longtime editor, John Macrae, has put together a collection which follows the course of Abbey's life through his own work. It is a clever way to anthologize a talent who is impossible to pigeonhole. . . .l*