Linda Lear

Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature
Although Beatrix Potter is a household name around the world, her personal life and her significant achievements remain largely unknown. Potter's life was inspired and entriched by nature. She was first an artist and scientific illustrator, who found fame as the creator of "Peter Rabbit" and twenty-three other famous little books for children. But after the tragic death of her fiance, Potter reinvented herself as a successful landowner and country farmer. She became a conservationist in order to preserve the landscape that inspired her art, and through her bequests to the National Trust, she saved whole areas of the Lake District of England for posterity.

Introduction to Under the Sea-Wind, by Rachel Carson(May 2007)
Carson's first book was published in 1941 and buried by the outbreak of World War II. Republished in 1952 it became a best seller. Now the author's original foreword has been reprinted for the first time, along with illustrations that Carson commissioned by Howard Frech. Linda Lear, Carson's biographer, has written an introduction explaining just why this first book meant so much to Carson and should be remembered.

1. Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature.
(Holt, 1997)

A compelling biography of Rachel Carson, illuminating the origin of her connection with nature and her determination to save what she loved. Silent Spring transformed the nature of the debate about what science and technology were about in the 20th century. Winner of the 1998 prize for the best book on women in science.

2. Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson
(Beacon, 1998)

A trove of Carson writing Lear uncovered during the course of writing Carson’s biography. Included are examples of her nature writing, her speeches, her letters, and unpublished work, illuminating her courage in the midst of the culture of silence and her determination to save what she could of the world she loved.

3. Introduction to The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson
The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson
Introduction by Linda Lear
(HarperCollins, 1998)

This is a new edition of Carson's posthumously published work that she hoped to have a chance to develop into a larger book. It was first published in 1956 as a "Help Your Child to Wonder" in Woman's Home Companion,(July 1956).This new editions features glorious photographs by Nick Kelsh taken near Carson's cottage in Maine. I have always wanted to write an introduction to this book and so pleased to have been asked to contribute. This was one of Carson's favorite pieces of writing as it is mine.

4. Introduction to the 40th anniversary edition of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Introduction by Linda Lear, Afterword by E. O. Wilson (Houghton Mifflin, 2002)

Lear writes about why Silent Spring is even more relevant to our lives than ever and how our arrogance toward nature is the root cause of much of our modern alienation.