Other editions of book The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod

The Outermost House is a classic of American nature literature. In 1926, Henry Beston spent two weeks in a two-room cottage on the sand dunes of Cape Cod. He had not intended to stay longer, but, as he later wrote, "I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go." Beston stayed for a year, meditating on humanity and the natural world. In The Outermost House, originally published in 1928, he poetically chronicled the four seasons at the beach: the ebb and flow of the tides, the migration of birds, storms, stars, and solitude. The landscape was his major character, and his writing provides a snapshot of the Cape, a place physically changed yet still as soulful 80 years later. Like Henry D. Thoreau before him, and Rachel Carson after him, Beston was a writer of stunning beauty, importance, and vision. Robert Finch once wrote of him, "His are burnished, polished sentences, richly metaphoric and musical, that beg to be read aloud."

The seventy-fifth anniversary edition of the classic book about Cape Cod, "written with simplicity, sympathy, and beauty" (New York Herald Tribune)A chronicle of a solitary year spent on a Cape Cod beach, The Outermost House has long been recognized as a classic of American nature writing. Henry Beston had originally planned to spend just two weeks in his seaside home, but was so possessed by the mysterious beauty of his surroundings that he found he "could not go."Instead, he sat down to try and capture in words the wonders of the magical landscape he found himself in thrall to: the migrations of seabirds, the rhythms of the tide, the windblown dunes, and the scatter of stars in the changing summer sky. Beston argued that, "The world today is sick to its thin blood for the lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot." Seventy-five years after they were first published, Beston's words are more true than ever.

NonfictionLarge Print EditionWritten with simplicity, sympathy, and beauty. New York Herald TribuneIn what is considered to be a classic of American nature writing, The Outermost House chronicles a solitary year spent on a Cape Cod beach. Though Henry Beston had planned to spend only two weeks at the house, he became so entranced by the nature surrounding him that he could not leave. Here we find the migrations of birds, the rhythms of wind, sand and sea, and the changing seasons as Bestons words capture the vividness of nature.

A rediscovered classic of American nature writing: the poetic account of a solitary year observing the wild beauty of Cape CodWith an introduction by Philip HoareA fragment of land in open ocean, the outermost beach of Cape Cod lies battered by winds and waves. It was here that the writer-naturalist Henry Beston spent a year in a tiny, two-roomed wooden house built on a solitary dune, writing his rapturous account of the changing seasons amid a vast, bright world of sea, sand and sky.Transforming the natural world into something mysterious, elemental and transcendent, Beston describes soaring clouds of migrating birds and butterflies; the primal sounds of the booming sea; luminous plankton washed ashore like stardust; the long-buried, blackened skeleton of an ancient shipwreck rising from the dunes during a winter storm; a single eagle in the endless blue.With its rhythmic, incantatory language and its heightened sensory power, The Outermost House is an American classic that changed writing about the wild: a hymn to ancient, eternal patterns of life and creation.Henry Beston (1888–1968) was born in Quincy, Massachusetts and educated at Harvard. He wrote many books in his lifetime, including a memoir of his years in the volunteer ambulance corps in the First World War, an account of life in the US Navy and a book of fairy tales. The Outermost House, widely considered his masterpiece, was published in 1928. His Cape Cod house was named a National Literary Landmark in 1964, and it was destroyed by a huge winter storm in 1978.

In 1926, Henry Beston spent two weeks in a two-room cottage on the sand dunes of Cape Cod. He had not intended to stay longer, but, as he later wrote, "I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go." Beston stayed for a year, meditating on humanity and the natural world. In The Outermost House, originally published in 1928, he poetically chronicled the four seasons at the beach; the ebb and flow of the tides, the migration of birds, storms, stars, and solitude. The landscape was his major character, and his writing provides a snapshot of the Cape, a place physically changed yet as soulful 80 years later. Like Henry D. Thoreau before him, and Rachel Carson after him, Beston was a writer of stunning beauty, importance and vision. Robert Finch once wrote of him, His are burnished, polished sentences, richly metaphoric and musical, that beg to be read aloud. The Outermost House is a classic of American nature literature. It is now available, for the first time, on audio. *Including an interview with Beston biographer, Dr. Daniel G. Payne *Unabridged on 5 CDs / approximately 5 hours *Narrated by Brett Barry

1949 published by Rinehart. 8vo. Dark green cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine. All pages clean and bright. Top of spine shows very slight wear. Otherwise a Fine+ copy. Olive green DJ with illustration of house on a beach on front. Slight wear to top of spine and small scrape on spine. Otherwise a Fine DJ. This is a Fine+ copy in a Fine DJ and suitable as a gift for a lover of the natural world. Ships next day from the US.

NonfictionLarge Print EditionWritten with simplicity, sympathy, and beauty. New York Herald TribuneIn what is considered to be a classic of American nature writing, The Outermost House chronicles a solitary year spent on a Cape Cod beach. Though Henry Beston had planned to spend only two weeks at the house, he became so entranced by the nature surrounding him that he could not leave. Here we find the migrations of birds, the rhythms of wind, sand and sea, and the changing seasons as Bestons words capture the vividness of nature.