My First Summer in the Sierra.

Authors

John Muir

Files

Kimes Entry Number

295

Original Date

1-1-1911

William and Maymie Kimes Annotation

During the summer of 1869, when Muir was employed to assist and oversee a sheepherder and his band of sheep at their mountain pasture in the Sierra, he kept a daily journal. Forty-one years later, he prepared this journal for publication and entitled it My First Summer in the Sierra. Since Houghton Mifflin Company had scheduled its publication for June 1911, it was wise promotion for futures sales to have selection from the book run serially in The Atlantic Monthly. These first selections from the journal relate the excitement and dust-smothering confusion of moving a flock of more than 2,000 sheep to the first main camp of its summer pasture in the Sieera. After reaching the coolness of the forest belt, Muir writes: "How deep our sleep last night in the mountain's heart, beneath the trees and starts...And our first pure mountain day, -- warm, calm, cloudless,-- how immeasurable it seems, how serenely wild!" On June 13th he rejoices: "Another glorious Sierra day in whoich one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent plusing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality." Selections are taken from no. 299, pp. 3-77.

Publication

The Atlantic Monthly, v. 107, no. 1.

Page/Column

pp. [1]-11

Recommended Citation

Muir, John, "My First Summer in the Sierra." (1911). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes (Muir articles 1866-1986). 335.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/335