Title
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth
Files
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Kimes Entry Number
315
Original Date
3-1-1913
Publication
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Page/Column
[viii], pp. [296]
Size/Description
Illus., 21 cm. Green cloth with border and decoration in black; gilt-stamped lettering on spine and front cover, top edges gilt. Illus.: front, photogravure and 9 plates tipped in. Price $2.00.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth" (1913). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes, 1986 (Muir articles 1866-1986). 355.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/355
William and Maymie Kimes Annotation
The first draft of this book was dictated to Mr. Edward H. Harriman's personal secretary at Harriamn's insistence, when Muir was a guest at the family Pelican Bay Lodge, Klamath Lake, Oregonin August 1908. The triple-spaced typescript ran to more than one thousand pages. Before publication, an abridged version appeared serially in The Atlantic Monthly (no. 311-314). When the last portion appeared with the story of the blacksmith's inhuman treatment of his half-witted brother Charlie, there was immediate and strong objections from the son of the blacksmith, James Whitehead. Muir replied in a letter dated February 13, 1913: ""I never did intentional injustice to any human being or animal, and I have directed my publishers to cancel all that has so grievously hurt you."" Muir wished to make arrived too late for the first issue, but the company assured him that the changes would be made in all subsquent issues. Thus, in the first issue, on page 217, the text reads: ""But, strange to say, in all that excessively law-abiding neighborhood none was bold enough or kind enough to break the blacksmith's jaw."" In subsequent issues, the text is changed to read: ""But strange to say, the brother who had faithfully cared from him controlled and concealed all his natural affection as incompatible with sound faith."" There are similar changes found on pp. 214-216. For later editions, see no. 341, v. 1, pp. [1]-[228]; no. 382; no. 383; no. 414; no. 445B. For abridged versions, see no. 316, no. 435, pp. 13-29. Contents: I. A Boyhood in Scotland; II. A New World; III. Life on a Wisconsin Farm; IV. A Pardise of Birds, V. Young Hunters; VI. The Ploughboy; VII. Knowledge and Inventions; VIII. The World and The University; Index.