book in 1958, she was already a world-famous writer, thanks to a
record-breaking bestseller, The Sea Around Us, and its companion
volume, The Edge of the Sea. Publishers would have been eager to
accept any book project that took her fancy. Rachel--as she said
herself--was not, at heart, a crusader. Why then did she commit
herself to such an unattractive subject as pesticides? And how was
she able to make a rather specialized scientific subject a work of
literature?

First, if I may, a personal note about how I came to meet Rachel
when I was editor in chief of Houghton Mifflin Co. in Boston. The
circumstances leading up to that meeting were somewhat bizarre.
A young woman named Rosalind Wilson, daughter of the famous
literary critic Edmund Wilson, had become a valuable member of
Houghton Mifflin's editorial staff. During the summer months, her
father liked to entertain various literary characters at his summer
home on Cape Cod. One Monday morning in early summer, after
attending such a party, Rosalind came into my office with an idea
for a book, a book that she said was badly needed. She went on to
describe the events of the weekend. There had been a storm on Sat-
urday that had kept everyone indoors. Sunday, however, was clear
and sunny: most of the guests had taken a walk along the beach.
Here they had found many horseshoe crabs apparently stranded on
the sand. To save the lives of these unfortunate creatures, Mr. Wil-
son's guests had conscientiously thrown them back into the ocean.
Alas, when the guests returned for lunch, a scientifically literate
gentleman (who had not accompanied them) was appalled. The
crabs, he explained, were mating and laying eggs. What these pre-
sumed rescuers had done was to interfere with the next generation
of horseshoe crabs! Rosalind was disturbed: this sort of ignorance
was inexcusable. We should get some authority to write a book on
the life of the seashore. Where could we find such a person? Nei-
ther of us knew, but we would keep the project in mind.

Soon after this conversation, I happened to be in Houghton

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