This anthology looks beyond the recent interest in the relationship between literature and the environment to the earliest ecocritical works written between 1864 and 1964. Mazel argues that these early ecocritics played a crucial role in the development of environmentalism.

In the 1970s the relationship between literature and the environment began to emerge as a topic of serious and widespread interest among writers and scholars. Their ideas, debates, and texts subsequently converged and consolidated into the field now known as ecocriticism. This anthology looks past these recent developments to the earliest ecocritical inclinations in the writings of authors dating back more than a century. Written between 1864 and 1964, these selections by thirty-four writers represent scholars who wrote about the "green" aspects of literature as well as nature writers who reflected on the act of writing itself. In his introduction, David Mazel argues that these early"ecocritics" played a crucial role in both the development of environmentalism and the academic study of American literature and culture. Filled with provocative, still-timely ideas, A Century of Early Ecocriticism demonstrates that our concern with the natural world has long informed our approach to literature.