OP: Gather Ye Wild Things

Harper & Row, New York, 1980. Hardcover. Very Good. First printing.

It must be the intimate and regular commune with nature that makes foragers so often poetical when they speak about their craft. Susan Tyler Hitchcock’s Gather Ye Wild Things (1980) is a fine example of writing that bridges the gap between lyrical and informational. 

The conservationist (who, unsurprisingly, has an English literature background) begins by lulling us into a peaceful meditation on the subtle transition between seasons—”The landscape sleeps, cold and gray. Winter lingers. Daytime breezes blow a little warmer, but nighttime frosts return. A silent spring thaw slowly tingles through the underground network.” As the reader rouses from this reverie pages later, they’ll soon realize they’ve learned a thing or two about harvesting maple and birch sap.

All 52 chapters (each corresponding to the weeks of a year) are similarly captivating. While neither the first nor the last word on foraging, Gather Ye Wild Things is a welcome companion for the casual nature enthusiast or for serious and adept foragers. Lovely reading—and worth noting that our own store founder, Nach Waxman, edited this book while he was still working at Harper.

Our copy’s book block and case are both Fine. The jacket is somewhat soiled, price clipped, and chipping about the edges. An attractive book, nonetheless, with line illustrations by G. B. McIntosh. First printing.