Happy (Belated) Birthday, Loren Eiseley

Born September 3, 1907, Lincoln, Nebraska | Died July 9, 1977, Philadelphia, PA

A day late, the Best American Essays newsletter celebrates essayist, philosopher, poet, and literary naturalist Loren Eiseley on the 117th anniversary of his birth. Eiseley’s first book, The Immense Journey, was also his most notable work, attracting readers with his lyrical approach to scientific topics. 

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Loren Eiseley, 1966, photo by Frank Ross

“It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man.”

Loren Eiseley’s headstone, photo by Elizabeth and Robert Scheyder

“Man without writing cannot long retain his history in his head. His intelligence permits him to grasp some kind of succession of generations; but without writing, the tale of the past rapidly degenerates into fumbling myth and fable.”

First published essay:

• “The Folsom Mystery,” Scientific American, December, 1942. Examines the mystery of the Folsom Spear Point, excavated in 1927 near the small town of Folsom, New Mexico. The spear point is one of the most famous artifacts in North American archaeology.

Select nonfiction bibliography: 

• Loren Eiseley: Collected Essays on Evolution, Nature, and the Cosmos, Volume One, edited by William Cronon (Library of America, 2016).

• Loren Eiseley: Collected Essays on Evolution, Nature, and the Cosmos, Volume Two, edited by William Cronon (Library of America, 2016)

• "The Brown Wasps," The Best American Essays of the Century, edited by Joyce Carol Oates & Robert Atwan (Mariner Books, 2001).

See also, works by authors whose essays have been reprinted in The Best American Essays or been selected as Notable in the series: 

• Vivian Gornick, “Loren Eiseley: Excavating the Self,” The American Scholar, 2000.

Loren Eiseley’s first book, The Immense Journey (1957), is a collection of essays which examines “the recency of man, his development, genetic endowments, and the enormous, interlined complexity of life.” His second book was Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It  (1958). His third book, The Firmament of Time (1960), explores the status of the human species in the late twentieth century.

Visit the Loren Eiseley Website for access to many of Loren Eiseley’s writings. 

Visit the Loren Eiseley Society Website for curricular and teaching guides and other resources.

Listen to Loren Eiseley’s YWHA Lecture, March 1969. 

Listen to Loren Eiseley reading his poetry, 1974.