In The Edge of the Sea, originally published in 1955, Rachel Carson introduces us to the 'strange and beautiful place' where the sea meets the land. She explores a tide pool, an inaccessible cave, and watches a lone crab on the shore at midnight. From these, and other, encounters she offers us not just a scientifically accurate study of the ecology of the seashore, but also a hauntingly beautiful account of the fragile balance of life found at the edge of the sea.
The Edge of the Sea, like all her writing, sounds a prophetic alarm for the damage mankind is doing to the natural world, but also offers us inspiration: here is beauty, here is something worth saving.
Rachel Louise Carson (1907 - 1964) was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. Carson began her career as an aquatic biologist and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. She highlighted conservation, especially environmental problems that she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides, most notably DDT. She brought environmental concerns to a global audience through her writing, inspiring grassroots environmental movements across the planet.
"A brilliantly written argument that changed the course of history"
– Al Gore
"Catching the life breath of science on the still glass of poetry"
– Time