The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913) is Muir's memoir of growing up in rural Scotland and coming to America with his family at age eleven, and of his early fascination with the natural world. My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) is his famous account of the spiritual awakening he experienced when, in 1869, he first encountered the mountains and valleys of central California. The natural history classic The Mountains of California(1894) draws on half a lifetime of exploration of the High Sierra country to celebrate and evoke the region's lakes, forests, flowers, and animals, its glaciers, storms, floods, and geological formations, in a masterpiece of observation and poetic description. Stickeen (1909), Muir's most popular book, is the affectionate story of his adventure with a dog in Alaska. Rounding out the volume is a rich selection of essays that highlight various aspects of his career: his exploration of what became Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, his successful crusades to preserve the wilderness, his early walking tour of Florida, and the Alaska journey of 1879.