John Fowles: The Tree

From Ecco, in a special 30th anniversary edition, the renowned English novelist’s moving meditation on the connection between the natural world and human creativity, and a powerful argument against taming the wild.

John Fowles (1926–2005) is widely regarded as one of the preeminent English novelists of the twentieth century—his books have sold millions of copies worldwide, been turned into beloved films, and been popularly voted among the 100 greatest novels of the century.

To a smaller yet no less passionate audience, Fowles is also known for having written The Tree, one of his few works of nonfiction. First published a generation ago, it is a provocative meditation on the connection between the natural world and human creativity, and a powerful argument against taming the wild. In it, Fowles recounts his own childhood in England and describes how he rebelled against his Edwardian father’s obsession with the “quantifiable yield” of well-pruned fruit trees and came to prize instead the messy, purposeless beauty of nature left to its wildest.

The Tree is an inspiring, even life-changing book, like Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, one that reaffirms our connection to nature and reminds us of the pleasure of getting lost, the merits of having no plan, and the wisdom of following one’s nose wherever it may lead—in life as much as in art.

“[Fowles] combines such moments of youthful exuberance with mature intellectual inquiry to create a book that belongs alongside the finest wilderness-rambling narratives, texts such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker, Thoreau’s Walking, and Edward Abbey’s sandstone sorties in Desert Solitaire.
—The New Yorker Book Bench

“A striking display of empathy for nature and the most original argument for wilderness preservation I have encountered.”
—Washington Post

“A great book—part essay, part memoir, part nature writing—and it’s the perfect little thing to roll up in your pocket and take with you for a lunch in the park. It’s like having a laid-back, wide-ranging conversation with one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century.”
—The Stranger (See more praise for The Tree.)