Ours would be no conventional tour. It would include wild and remote places the usual tourist avoids. We would see spring come to dunes, and tarns and seashell islands, to caves and underground rivers, to estuaries and savannas. For 17,000 miles we would travel with a season. In 23 different states we would witness the defeat of winter, see the homecoming of the birds, watch the return of the wildflowers. This was the long spring. (From Chapter One: Winter) 

{HISTORY}

In short, Edwin Way Teale's North With The Spring is a recounting of his 17,000-mile journey following Spring as it unfurled up the East Coast from Florida to Maine during the late 1940s.  But that description barely breaks the surface of this gorgeous nature book about a husband and wife team who tracked, recorded, and observed the season with all its animals, insects, flora, and fauna as it turned over the winter landscape. 

At once a hopeful book full of beautiful imagery, insightful observations, and of-the-moment encounters, North With the Spring was actually born from tragedy. A trip long-planned out and set aside time and time again for years by the Teales, it wasn't until their only son, David was killed in action during World War II, that this seasonal journey finally came to fruition as a way to both process and escape the grief Edwin and his wife, Nellie felt.  

What results is a beautifully written portrayal of the most charismatic season of the year as it rolls out from the Everglades at the tip of Florida in February all the way up through the East Coast to southern Maine and part of Canada in late June.

Part history book, part naturalist's guide, part cultural exploration, and environmental narrative, each chapter, each area, offers all sorts of interesting information spurred on by the change of season. Illustrating its importance in the landscape and its effects on local communities and colonies, Edwin documents all aspects of their Spring journey from sights and sounds, to people and places while also recalling writers of past generations who initially informed our collective understanding of nature and its seasonal changes.

The first book in what would become a four-part series of books each detailing a particular season.  North With The Spring was a big undertaking, the first of its size and scope in the field of nature writing. This format and subject matter would capture Edwin and Nellie's attention for the next 20 years across all four seasons across the United States. 

Packed with a diverse amount of fascinating info from herb gathering in the mountains of North Carolina to studying eagle's nests in a palmetto pasture in Florida to discovering the nighttime sounds of mockingbirds in Delaware, this book is a love letter to Earth and all the creatures and characters that inhabit it. 

Photo of Edwin and Nellie Teale courtesy of the Kansas City Star July 27, 1967

{SPECIAL FEATURES}

• 1957 Edition, 15th Printing
• 337 pages
•  Includes original dust jacket
• Includes black and white photographs

{CONDITION}

In lovely vintage condition, this book is clean and bright throughout The dust jacket contains some chippy areas along the top and bottom edge and fading on the spine portion. The coverboards are clean and bright and the interior pages are free of spots, stains and notations. The spine is tight and all pages are intact. 

{SIZE}

Measures 8.5" inches (length) x 6" inches (width) x 1.25" inches (thickness) and weighs 1.7 lbs.