Product Description

For thirty-two years, the artist Margaret Mee was enchanted by and lured back again and again to the massive, unpredictable and fertile rainforests of Amazonas. Her initial objective, to search out and illustrate the glorious flora growing in the tree canopies and along the innumerable waterways of the great rivers of the Amazon basin, was later combined with a growing concern at the commercial plunder of the great forests. Her first expedition to Amazonas was in 1956 and it was then that she began to keep the diaries that, along with her paintings, drawings and sketches, make up this book. Although plant hunting always came first whenever possible and practical, other events often took over. A small dug-out canoe could become a waterlogged, if not dangerous, place to be; rapids had to be got through; recalcitrant boatmen were gently or sternly coerced; drunken prospectors were held off with a revolver. She was fascinated by the rich mix of Brazilians she came across and often lived with for a tim

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #652589 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 300 pages

From Booklist
British botanical artist and Amazon explorer Margaret Mee (1909-88) recorded her observations with pen and brush. Like a great plant explorer, Mee had a profound affinity for the place, its plants, and its people. In this munificent volume, her graceful and exquisitely detailed paintings of flora and fauna, works that combine both science and art, are accompanied by photographs and her extensive travel journals. Filled with botanical information and tales of adventure and hardship--including boat trouble, feuds, getting lost, and being bitten so fiercely by insects that her eyes swelled shut and she had to wrap her hands in plastic--Mee's travelogues are as riveting as her paintings are beautiful. Donna Seaman
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About the Author
Margaret Mee was born in Chesham, Buckinghamshire in 1909. She died tragically in a road accident in Leicestershire in 1988. For more than 35 years she had lived in Brazil with her husband. Soon after her death her name was added to the World Wide Fund for Nature, International Conservation Roll of Honour.