Loren Eiseley
“I am midde-aged now, but in the autumn I always seek for it again hopefully,” begins the final essay, entitled “The Secret of Life,” in Loren Eiseley’s book of essays, The Immense Journey (1957). It is a great essay in a lifetime of great essays by one of the greatest naturalist-writers in American literature. It is characteristic that he wrote the essay claiming middle-age before he was 50, but then he may have had Dante’s beginning of the Inferno in mind — “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / che la diritta via era smarrita” [Midway in the journey of our life / I came to myself in a dark wood, / for the straight way was lost.”] If any writer would be mindful of passing time and be a good guide for the reader in traversing a dark wood, Loren Eiseley (1907-1977) would be the man.
Eiseley was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and eventually graduated from the University of Nebraska there with a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Geology/Anthropology. While recovering from tuberculosis in mid-college, he rode the rails in the Depression, gathering experiences that would unexpectedly enter his writing about nature and time and humanity’s frail existence. He acquired a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and eventually returned there to head its Anthropology Department.
Eiseley’s essays are haunted by his perspective of the Other. Through temperment and training he acquired a distance from humanity, sometimes as close as the Neanderthal, sometimes as distant as a fox, often even further back in time. He walked the narrow ridge between a nonverbal lyrical approach to the universe and a scientifically honed analytical approach to the universe — and he would be the first to say it was all the same universe, not at all affected by a primate’s attempt to define it. He is one of a distinguished line of naturalist-philosophers that have arisen in modern times, among them Henry David Thoreau, Jean-Henri Fabre, Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey, Rachel Carson, Annie Dillard, and other distinguished company.
Before Adam [afterword by Loren Eiseley]
Before Adam [afterword by Loren Eiseley]
A young man in modern America is terrorized by visions of an earlier, primitive life. Across the enormous chasm of thousands of centuries, his consciousness has become entwined with that of Big-Tooth, an ancestor living at the dawn of humanity. Big-Tooth makes his home in Pleistocene Africa, a ferocious, fascinating younger world torn by incessant conflict between early humans and protohumans.
Before Adam is a remarkable and provocative tale that thrust evolution further into the public spotlight in the early twentieth century and has since become a milestone of speculative fiction. The brilliance of the book lies not only in its telling but also in its imaginative projection of a mindset for early humans. Capitalizing on his recognized ability to understand animals, Jack London paints an arresting and dark portrait of how our distant ancestors thought about themselves and their world.
This commemorative edition features a map of the world of Big-Tooth, an epilogue by Loren Eiseley, striking illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull, contemporary reviews, and a listing of peoples and characters.