The Life
and Legacy of
Rachel Carson
Books By Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson wrote only four books, but each of them in some measure changed the way we thought about ourselves and our world. All four of those published during her lifetime were "best-sellers". A fifth book The Sense of Wonder was published posthumously. All are still in print and several are available on CD, audio, and in large print editions. The book jackets shown here are the current in print editions, contrasted with the original book jackets.
Under the Sea-Wind
Author: Rachel Carson
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher:Penguin Classics; New edition (April 3, 2007)
Originally Published: 1941
ISBN-10: 0143104969
ISBN-13: 978-0143104964
​To honor Rachel Carson on the centennial of her birth in 2007, Penguin Classics proudly published a centennial edition of Under the Sea-Wind, Carson’s first book and her personal favorite. Featuring a new introduction by Carson’s biographer, Linda Lear, this edition includes the beautiful line drawings by Howard Frech from the very first edition (1941). Under the Sea-Wind takes you beneath the waves with the same kind of intimacy and wonder that made the documentaries "Winged Migration" and "March of the Penguins" such masterpieces of nature-immersion. This was the book that first established Carson as perhaps our most prescient and influential observer of the natural world.
The Sea Around Us
Author: Rachel Carson
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press (December 12, 1991)
Originally Published: July 1951
ISBN-10: 0195069978
ISBN-13: 978-0195069976
The Sea Around Us is based on post World War II geographical and oceanographic evidence of the life and work of the sea. It is a study of the processes that formed the earth, the moon, and the oceans. It won the National Book Award in 1952 and made Carson an international voice for the public understanding of science.
The Edge of the Sea
Author: Rachel Carson
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (October 15, 1998)
Originally Published: 1955
ISBN-10: 0395924960
ISBN-13: 978-0395924969
The Edge of the Sea is a practical guide to identifying the inhabitants of the sea that are found in marshes, tide pools, and shallows that border it - a world that mirrors the "spectacle of life in all its varied manifestations as it has appeared, evolved, died out." In it Carson considers the tide lines of the eastern sea coast -- the rocky shores, the sandy dunes, and the coral reefs.
​Silent Spring
Author: Rachel Carson
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company; Anniversary edition (2002 and 2012)
Originally Published: September 27, 1962
ISBN-10: 0618249060
ISBN-13: 978-0618249060
​This 40th and 50th Anniversary Edition of Silent Spring includes a new introduction by Linda Lear and an afterword by E.O. Wilson. See why Carson's analysis is more relevant now than ever.
The Sense of Wonder
Author: Rachel Carson
Hardcover: 112 pages
Publisher: Harper; Reprint edition (April 21, 1998)
Originally Published: 1965
ISBN-10: 006757520X
ISBN-13: 978-0067575208
​The Sense of Wonder, originally written as a 1950's magazine article ("Help Your Child to Wonder") and photo-illustrated after her death, details Carson's philosophy that adults need to nurture a child's inborn sense of wonder about the natural world. The new edition with glorious photographs by Nick Kelsh, printed in Italy, is the beautiful kind of book Carson imagined might someday be printed. Linda Lear wrote the introduction.
Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson
Author: Rachel Carson, Edited with an introduction by Linda Lear
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Boston: Beacon Press, 1998
Originally Published: 1998
ISBN-10: 0807085472
ISBN-13: 978-0807085479
This collection of childhood prose, early writings, intimate letters, speeches, a TV script, and unpublished fragments by one of the pioneers of the modern environmental movement gives rare glimpses of Carson’s unique capacity to fuse scientific precision and lyrical power. Spanning forty-five years of Carson’s writing it constitutes a stirring autobiography of the scientist who taught the world about ecology.