Rachel Carson was a university-trained biologist, a longtime United States government employee, and a best-selling author of such books as Edge of the Sea, The Sea Around Us (a National Book Award winner), and Silent Spring. Her book on the dangers of misusing pesticides, Silent Spring, has become a classic of environmental literature and resulted in her recognition as the fountainhead of modern environmentalism. Silent Spring was reissued in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition in 1987, and remains standard reading for anyone concerned about environmental issues.

Carson grew up in the Pennsylvania countryside and reportedly developed an early interest in nature from her mother and from exploring the woods and fields around her home. She was first an English major in college, but a required course in biology rekindled that early interest in the subject and she graduated in 1928 from Pennsylvania College for Women with a degree in zoology and...