In this series of moving recollections involving both his childhood and his work as a mature artist, Fowles explains the impact of nature on his life and the dangers inherent in our traditional urge to categorize, to tame, and ultimately to possess the landscape.
"For years I have carried this book...with me on travels to reread, ponder, envy. In prose of classic gravity, precision, and delicacy, Fowles addresses matters of final importance."

--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"The Tree is the fullest and finest exploration I've ever read of how the useless delights to be discovered in nature can ripen into the practice of art."

--Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift

"The most original argument for wilderness preservation I have encountered."
--Washington Post

Finally back in print, here is the 30th anniversary edition of The Tree--the renowned English novelist John Fowles's (The Magus, The French Lieutenant's Woman) moving meditation on the connection between the natural world and human creativity. An inspiring modern ecological classic, The Tree is both a powerful argument against taming the wild and a major author's inspiring and beautifully written defense of "the joys of getting lost," and of spontaneity in life and art.