Henry Beston, author of The Outermost House, described Herbs and the Earth as “part garden book, part musing study of our relation to nature through the oldest group of plants known to gardeners.” Beston’s wonderful prose leads us through the history, lore and uses of herbs. He wrote this book from his study in his farmhouse in Maine. Beston called it his herb attic — book-lined, with bunches of dried herbs hanging from the rafters. This is clearly a book written by someone in love with his subject. Beston himself considered this book among his finest writing.
The Outermost House is the book that most people know Henry Beston for, and it remains in print to this day. In the 1920’s Beston spent a year alone in a small dune cottage along Cape Cod’s eastern shore. What came from his isolation with sand and sea was one of the greatest meditations on the land that we have. He hoped to “know this coast and share its mysterious and elemental life“, and he succeeded brilliantly.
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