"The Ecocriticism Reader" is the first collection of its kind, an anthology of classic and cutting-edge writings in the rapidly emerging field of literary ecology. Exploring the relationship between literature and the physical environment, literary ecology is the study of the ways that writing both reflects and influences our interactions with the natural world.

An introduction to the field as well as a source book, "The Ecocriticism Reader" defines ecological literary discourse and sketches its development over the past quarter-century. The twenty-five selections in this volume, a...

Although the physical relationship between the natural world and individuals is quantifiable, the psychosocial effect of the former on the latter is often less tangible. What, for instance, is the connection between the environment in which we live and our creativity? How is our consciousness bounded and delimited by our materiality? And from whence does our idea of self and our belief in free will derive and when do our surroundings challenge these basic assumptions?

Ecocritic Harold Fromm's challenging exploration of these and related questions twines his own physical experiences...