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.
*
Including an interview with Beston's biographer, Dr.
Daniel G. Payne
* Unabridged on 5 CDs/approx. 5 hours
* Narrated by Brett Barry
Henry
Beston (1888-1968) was the author of many books, including
Herbs and The Earth and Northern Farm.
His Cape Cod house was declared a National Literary
Landmark in 1964, but was destroyed by a winter storm
in 1978.
You
may purchase this audiobook directly by clicking here:
It is also available
through online retailers and in many independent bookstores
throughout the Northeast. |
