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Format: Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
Author: Edward Abbey
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Year Published: 1988
Page Count: 485
Width in inches: 6.5
Height in inches: 9.5
Additional Information:
Abbey was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on January 29, 1927 to Mildred Postlewait and Paul Revere Abbey. Mildred was a schoolteacher and a church organist, and gave Abbey an appreciation for classical music and literature. Paul was a socialist, anarchist, and atheist whose views strongly influenced Abbey.
Abbey graduated from high school in Indiana, Pennsylvania, in 1945. Eight months before his 18th birthday, when he would be faced with being drafted into the United States military, Abbey decided to explore the American southwest. He traveled by foot, bus, hitchhiking, and freight train hopping.[2] During this trip he fell in love with the desert country of the Four Corners region. Abbey wrote: "[...]crags and pinnacles of naked rock, the dark cores of ancient volcanoes, a vast and silent emptiness smoldering with heat, color, and indecipherable significance, above which floated a small number of pure, clear, hard-edged clouds. For the first time, I felt I was getting close to the West of my deepest imaginings, the place where the tangible and the mythical became the same."
In the military Abbey had applied for a clerk typist position but instead he served two years as a military police officer in Italy. Abbey was promoted in the military twice but due to his knack for opposing authority, was twice demoted and was honorably discharged as a private. His experience with the military left him with a distrust for large institutions and regulations which influenced his writing throughout his career, and strengthened his anarchist beliefs.
When he returned to the United States, Abbey took advantage of the G.I. Bill to attend the University of New Mexico, where he received a B.A. in philosophy and English in 1951, and a master's degree in philosophy in 1956. During his time in college, Abbey supported himself by working at a variety of odd jobs, including being a newspaper reporter and bartending in Taos, New Mexico. During this time he had few male friends but had intimate relationships with a number of women. Shortly before getting his bachelor's degree, Abbey married his first wife, Jean Schmechal (another UNM student). While an undergraduate, Abbey was the editor of a student newspaper in which he published an article titled "Some Implications of Anarchy". A cover quotation of the article, "ironically attributed to Louisa May Alcott" stated "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." University officials seized all of the copies of the issue, and removed Abbey from the editorship of the paper.
Upon receiving his honorable discharge papers, he sent it back to the department with the words "Return to Sender". The FBI took note and added a note to his file which was opened in 1947 when Edward Abbey committed an act of civil disobedience; he posted a letter while in college urging people to rid themselves of their draft cards. Abbey was on the FBI’s watch-list ever since then and was watched throughout his life. In 1952 Abbey wrote a letter against the draft in times of peace and again the FBI took notice writing, "Edward Abbey is against war and military." Throughout his life the FBI took notes building a profile on Abbey, observing his movements and interviewing many people who knew him. Towards the later parts of his life Abbey learned of the FBI’s interest in him and said "I’d be insulted if they weren’t watching me.
After graduating, Schmechal and Abbey traveled together to Edinburgh, Scotland,[9] where Abbey spent a year at Edinburgh University as a Fulbright scholar. During this time, Abbey and Schmechal separated and ended their marriage.[9] In 1951 Abbey began having an affair with Rita Deanin, who in 1952 would become his second wife after he and Schmechal divorced. Deanin and Abbey had two children, Joshua N. Abbey and Aaron Paul Abbey.
Abbey's master's thesis explored anarchism and the morality of violence, asking the two questions: "To what extent is the current association between anarchism and violence warranted?" and "In so far as the association is a valid one, what arguments have the anarchists presented, explicitly or implicitly, to justify the use of violence? After receiving his master's degree, Abbey spent 1957 at Stanford University on a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship.
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