A Year in the Fields

Snowstorms, spring herbs, and autumn changes organize this selection of John Burroughs's outdoor essays. His familiar ground is the Catskills and the country around his Hudson River home, where watching birds and walking through woods become subjects for patient, personal description. Chapters on winter neighbors, April, and wild flowers place everyday encounters within the changing year. Clifton Johnson contributes a biographical sketch and photographs, connecting these observations with Burroughs's farm upbringing and his writing retreats at Riverby and Slabsides.

The field excursions also leave room for frustration and humor. In one passage, a search for Thomas's Lake leads through alder swamps and mistaken turns, while the calls of a robin and winter wren interrupt the narrator's discouragement. Readers interested in nature essays can follow how close attention to birdsong, terrain, and seasonal detail gives ordinary country walks their interest.