Henry Beston planned to spend only two weeks in his newly built cottage on the outer beach of Cape Cod. As summer drifted into autumn, however, he found himself so entranced by the landscape’s rhythms and beauty that he could not bear to leave.
Settled in his isolated house facing the North Atlantic, Beston spent a year immersed in the raw, elemental life of the great beach around him. Observing the migrations of seabirds, savage winter storms and the constantly shifting interactions between sea and shore, he wrote of the passing seasons in ecstatic, riveting detail.
Reviewed by Richard Platt in Slightly Foxed Issue 65.
Walden-by-the-Sea
RICHARD PLATT
It is a typical winter night on California’s central coast: the rain has been drumming on the roof, the dogs, happy and dry, are curled up in their beds, and my wife and I are in our bed, propped up on a pile of pillows, books in hand. I’m attempting with mixed success not to shake the bed with repressed laughter brought on by P. G. Wodehouse. My wife, having put aside the ever-present New Yorker magazine, is giving her undivided attention to The Outermost House by Henry Beston . . .
Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 65, Spring 2020
Walden-by-the-Sea
It is a typical winter night on California’s central coast: the rain has been drumming on the roof, the dogs, happy and dry, are curled up in their beds, and my wife and I are in our bed, propped...
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