Outdoor literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Outdoor literature is a literature genre about or involving the outdoors. Outdoor literature encompasses several different literary genres variously called Exploration literature, Adventure literature and Nature literature. These genres can include activities such as exploration, survival, sailing, mountaineering, whitewater boating, kayaking, etc. or writing about nature and the environment. They all involve being in the outdoors as a central theme and are usually narrative non-fiction. It differs from Travel literature, although the two genres can mix and there is no definitive boundary.

Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1845-1847) is an early and influential work. Although not entirely an outdoor work (he lived in a cabin nearby civilization) he expressed the ideas of why people go out into the wilderness to camp, backpack and hike: to get away from the rush of modern society and simplify life. This was a new perspective for the time and thus Walden has had a lasting influence on most outdoor authors.

Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879), about his travels in Cévennes (France), is among the first popular books to present hiking and camping as recreational activities, and tells of commissioning one of the first sleeping bags.

The National Outdoor Book Awards was formed in 1997 as a US-based non-profit program which each year honors the best in outdoor writing and publishing.

[edit] Notable outdoor literature

Pre-19th Century
- Richard Hakluyt (1589). Voyages. A foundation text of the travel literature genre.
19th Century
- Charles Darwin (1839). The Voyage of the Beagle.
- Richard Henry Dana (1841). Two Years Before the Mast. Some of the earliest descriptions of California.
- Edward Whymper (1871). Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-1869
- Mark Twain (1872). Roughing It. Part real part fiction, classic account of life in the American Old West.
- Joshua Slocum (1900). Sailing Alone Around the World. A 53-year old Nova Scotia mariner is first to do this between 1895 and 1898.
20th Century
- Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, an account of Robert Falcon Scott's 1910-1913 expedition to the South Pole.
- Ernest Shackleton (1917), South. A classic of polar exploration.
- Ivan T. Sanderson (1930s). AnimalTreasureand Caribbean Treasure. During the 1930's explorations to the jungles of Africa and a visit to the remaining wild spots along the Caribbean including Netherlands Guiana by a naturalist.
- Evelyn Waugh (1930s). When the Going Was Good. With Waugh around the Mediterranean, to Ethiopia, across Africa and through the jungles of South America, in the late 1920's and 1930's.
- Grey Owl (1935). Pilgrims of the Wild. About Grey Owl's life in the wilds of Canada.
- Gontran De Poncins (1939). Kabloona. French adventurer living with Eskimos in the late 1930s.
- Wilfred Thesiger (1950s). Arabian Sands. Another classic of adventure. Since he travelled so much, Thesiger's biography, The Life of My Choice also rates as a great travel book. Thesiger's travels took him to Ethiopia, Arabia, French West Africa and the Sudan. He was an explorer/adventurer, soldier and British colonial official.
- Wallace Stegner (1954). Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West
- Eric Newby (1958). A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. Popular English travel writer.
- Sally Carrighar (1940s-1980s). One Day at Teton Marsh", Icebound Summer, The Twilight Seas. People are often not present in these stories of nature.
- Jon Krakauer (1990s). Into the Wild, Into Thin Air.