The Mountains of California (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

Published in 1894, this is a memoir of Muir's ten years in the Sierra Nevadas, which he first visited in 1868.  The pristine wild landscape, with its unspoiled flora and fauna, made a profound impression, leading him to dedicate his life to its preservation.  Readers can recapture that lost landscape through Muir's poetic, almost incantatory prose.