Joseph Wood Krutch

Joseph Wood Krutch came to nature writing later in life, after a distinguished career as a drama critic and professor. He was born on November 25, 1893, in Knoxville, Tennessee. From 1924 to 1952, he was the drama critic for the magazine, The Nation. During that time he established his national reputation as a writer who approached his subject from a thoughtful, philosophical perspective. He published many books during this time, including a biography of Henry David Thoreau.

Mr. Krutch turned to nature writing after he moved to Arizona in 1950 for health reasons. He discovered and fell in love with the desert. His passion for the desert and all its flora and fauna resulted in The Desert Year (1952), which tells of his first year living in the Sonoran Desert. In the first chapter he says, "There is all the difference in the world between looking at something and living in it." Each chapter is an essay on some aspect of desert life that has touched his life. In a gentle, conversational style he integrates his vast philosophical and artistic knowledge with everyday life in the desert. For example, he connects people such as Kant, Keats, and O’Keeffe to the desert land, plants, and people. The Desert Year won the John Burroughs Medal in 1954.

He followed The Desert Year with The Voice of the Desert (1954), which includes his famous conservation essay, "Conservation is Not Enough." In this essay he says, "What is commonly called ‘conservation’ will not work in the long run because it is not really conservation at all but rather, disguised by its elaborate scheming, only a more knowledgeable variation on the old idea of a world for man’s use only." He argues that humans still see themselves as the reason for creation and as such have a right to subdue and use all that has been created. Real conservation, Krutch says, begins with delight in nature for its own sake. He quotes Thoreau, "This curious world which we inhabit...is more to be admired and enjoyed than it is to be used."

Other nature writing books by Mr. Krutch include:

The Twelve Seasons: A Perpetual Calendar for the Seasons (1949)

The Great Chain of Life (1956, 1977)

The Best Nature Writing of Joseph Wood Krutch (1969)