The Lord's Woods: The Passing of an American Woodland (inscribed)
NY: Norton, 1971. First edition. Hardcover. Inscribed in a blue pen on the left page of the title spread, just above the byline: "To Pete and Dick, with best wishes, Robert Arbib." Uncommon signed, and a book that's uncommon in general and seemingly scarce in jacket. It won the John Burroughs Medal for natural history writing in 1972. A wonderful, vivid memoir of Arbib's childhood, growth, and especially birding adventures in his neighborhood woods (the old "Lord's estate") of Woodmere, Long Island, near today's Kennedy Airport. It finally details, play by play, the doomed battle to save the woods from development, and in this way is a nice snapshot of budding local conservation campaigns in the early seventies. See our Ramble about it. A prominent blurb by Edwin Way Teale, who calls it a "profoundly moving book" (we agree). Arbib was an accomplished birder and naturalist and for fourteen years the editor of the Audubon Society's magazine American Birds. A very good or better copy with a slight slant to upper spine and some ghosting (browning) on the map-illustrated front free endpaper where a newspaper clipping was once laid in. In a very good, scarce jacket with its front flap clipped, but not price-clipped, and a little edge wear to spine ends, including one short tear to lower spine. Very good / Very good. Item #1715
ISBN: 9780393086393
Price: $625.00 save 5% $593.75