Noel Perrin

In a single volume Ernest Thompson Seton, renowned naturalist, writer, artist, and founding leader of the Boy Scouts of America, presents one of the most comprehensive guides to the outdoors ever written. Originally published in 1922 as The Book of Woodcraft, this work represents the culmination of years of observation and experience in the wilderness. Within these pages lie instructions and anecdotes—some expected, some delightfully unanticipated—regarding literally hundreds of arts, crafts, skills, and games. Here one can learn to distinguish edible plants from poisonous ones; start a fire using only a jackknife; build a four-store birdhouse out of a wooden box; communicate in sign language; tie a variety of essential knots; identify trees, wildflowers, animals, birds, and constellations; and much, much more. Abundantly illustrated with the author's own handsome pen-and-ink drawings, this classic outdoor handbook is both a cherished piece of American history and a useful tool in preserving and communing with nature.

Essays on rural life that not only address the many how-to questions that bedevil country dwellers, but also the larger direction that life is taking on this planet. Perrin, a transplanted New Yorker and now a “real” Vermonter, candidly admits his early mistakes while giving concrete advice on matters such as what to do with maple syrup (other than put it on your pancakes), how to use a peavey, and how to replace your rototiller with a garden animal.

Noel Perrin's delightful account of building a sugarhouse and making maple sugar in Vermont first appeared twenty years ago. Like a sturdy New England farmhouse, Perrin has added to it over the years to reflect his subsequent sugaring experiences, and includes in this latest edition a "postpostpostscript." His celebration of simple, hard work to produce a "quite wonderful, maybe even sacred article" has not been diminished by plastic tubing, thrip infestations, and the strange new market for Vermont sap water.

In the spring of 1991, Noel Perrin flew from Vermont to California to pick up his newly outfitted electric car, a former gas-guzzling Ford. It would not be easy, but Perrin planned to drive Solo--as the car was soon dubbed--home, a 3,100-mile drive. Here is the picturesque story of the trip--from Solo's struggle with gravity at Donner Pass to an encounter with a man with four electric cars in Rotterdam, New York.

One of America's finest essayists writes about 40 literary masterpieces that have been wrongfully forgotten or were ignored in the first place.