Edward Hoagland

Edward Morley Hoagland (December 21, 1932 – February 17, 2026) was an American author best known for his nature and travel writing.

Life and career Edward Morley Hoagland was born in New York City on December 21, 1932. He taught at The New School, Rutgers, Sarah Lawrence, CUNY, the University of Iowa, U.C. Davis, Columbia University, Beloit College, and Brown University. In 2005, Hoagland retired from a teaching position at Bennington College. Starting in 1968, he focused mostly on Montaigne-type essays.

According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography,

After retiring, Hoagland spent summers in Barton, Vermont, at a place he had owned since 1969, and winters in Martha's Vineyard. He died in Manhattan on February 17, 2026, aged 93.

Critique Hoagland's nonfiction was praised by writers and critics such as John Updike, who called him "the best essayist of my generation"; Philip Roth, who called him "America’s most intelligent and wide-ranging essayist-naturalist"; and Alfred Kazin, who said he "writes for magazines on all manner of topics with regular, predictable brilliance". "Journals '04, '05," The Seattle Review, Fall 2009 "Barley and Yaks," Orion, November 2009 "Last Call – Old Age and the End of Nature," Harper's, May 2010 "Spaced Out in the City," American Scholar, Summer 2010 "When I Was Blind," Portland Magazine, Summer 2011 "The Gravity of Falling," The American Scholar, Winter 2012 "The Top of the Continent," Portland Magazine, Winter 2012 "On Friendship," The American Scholar, Winter 2013 "Pity Earth's Creatures," The New York Times, March 23, 2013

Other essays

Commencing from March 12, 1979, fifty-plus unsigned editorials in The New York Times: "The Price of Fur," "In the Spring," "Hang-ups," "Mountain House," etc., to 1989 Pequod, Winter 1986 New England Monthly, May 1987 Yankee Homes, September 1989 Manchester Guardian, January 20, 1990; August 12, 1990; March 31, 1991 Anchorage Daily News, June 28, 1992 Vermont, June 1994 The New York Times, January 11, 1986; June 15, 1991; October 5, 1993; May 13, 1995 Rolling Stone, May 28, 1998 Manoa, June 1999 Portland Magazine (Oregon), Summer 1996; Winter 1996; Winter 1997; Spring 2002 The Vineyard Gazette, November 9, 2012

Book reviews

In The New York Times Book Review, May 9, 1971; June 13, 1971; February 6, 1972; October 7, 1973; October 21, 1973; December 2, 1973; April 14, 1974; May 19, 1974; "City Walking," June 1, 1975; June 22, 1975; November 9, 1975; December 7, 1975; April 11, 1976; April 18, 1976; May 9, 1976; August 15, 1976; September 5, 1976; November 14, 1976; January 9, 1977; June 19, 1977; August 14, 1977; September 11, 1977; November 27, 1977; December 11, 1977; November 19, 1978; November 26, 1978; January 21, 1979; February 4, 1979; June 24, 1979; July 22, 1979; March 23, 1980; March 30, 1980; June 8, 1980; August 17, 1980; March 15, 1981; November 8, 1981; June 6, 1982; August 29, 1982; October 17, 1982; November 21, 1982; June 12, 1983; January 22, 1984; October, 1984; February 16, 1986; July 19, 1987; September 11, 1988; January 8, 1989; May 7, 1989; March 18, 1990; November 25, 1990; July 2, 2000 In The Boston Herald, December 20, 1970 In The Village Voice, December 30, 1971; October 24, 1974; October 1982 In The Chicago Daily News, December 1, 1974 In Life, October 14, 1971; April 21, 1972; October 27, 1972 In Harper's Book Letter, May 12, 1975 In Harper's, July 1977; May 1985; January 1986; February 1989 In Saturday Review, April 28, 1979, December 1980 In New York magazine, May 28, 1979 In The New Republic, October 20, 1979; March 1, 1980 In Washington Post Book World, April 12, 1970; June 6, 1970; October 30, 1972; June 15, 1980; October 11, 1981; August 2, 1987 In Inside Sports, November 1980 In Science Digest, October 1981 In Chicago Tribune, November 6, 1988 In Wigwag, October–November–December 1989 In USA Today, October 23, 1992; November 13, 1992; January 21, 1994 In Boston Globe, November 19, 1995; April 19, 1997 In Los Angeles Times, September 22, 1996 In Civilization, November 1994; March 1995; July 1995; October 1997 In Onearth, October 2004 "Here He Is, On the Prowl," in "William James in His Time and Ours," Harvard Library Bulletin, Volume 20, Number 2

Other work

General editor of the Penguin Nature Library; later called the Penguin Nature Classics series: thirty volumes in all, 1985 on: Bartram, Beston, Austin, Bates, Catlin, Audubon, Thoreau, Muir, Powell, Warner, White, Seton, Lewis and Clark, Prishvin, King, etc., introduced by Stegner, Updike, Theroux, Dickey, Barth, Turner, Abbey, McKibben, Shoumatoff, Ehrlich, Nelson, Berry, Matthiessen, et al.

Introductions written for: The Circus of Dr. Lao, by Charles G. Finney, Vintage, 1983 The Mountains of California, by John Muir, Penguin, 1985 The Maine Woods, by Henry David Thoreau, Penguin, 1988 Vanishing Arctic, by T. M. Watkins, Aperture Books, 1988 The Pushcart Prize XVI, Best of the Small Presses, edited by Bill Henderson, 1991 Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, Vintage, 1991 Steep Trails, by John Muir, Sierra Club Books, 1994 Land of Rivers, by Peter Mancall, Cornell University Press, 1996 N by E, by Rockwell Kent, Wesleyan University Press, 1996 The Natural History of Selborne, by Gilbert White, Penguin, 1997 The Best American Essays 1999, edited by Edward Hoagland, Houghton Mifflin, 1999 Elevating Ourselves, by Henry David Thoreau, Houghton Mifflin, 1999 Our Like Will Not Be There Again, by Lawrence Hillman, Ruminator Books, 2001 The Shameless Diary of an Explorer, by Robert Dunn, Modern Library, 2001 Shooting Blind, by Visually Impaired Collective, Aperture Books, 2002 Step Right This Way, by Edward J. Kelty, Barnes & Noble Books, 2002 Travels in Alaska, by John Muir, Modern Library, 2002 Interview, Agni 62, Fall 2005

Contributor to large-format books: Our World's Heritage, National Geographic Society, 1987 Paths Less Traveled, Atheneum, 1988 Favorite Places, a Travel & Leisure Book, 1989 Heart of a Nation, National Geographic Society, 2000

Other: In numerous anthologies. Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship, 1954; Longview Foundation Award, 1961; Prix de Rome, 1964; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1965; New York State Arts Council grant, 1972; Brandeis University Citation in Literature, 1972; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1975; Harold Vursell Award of American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1981; National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1982; Lannan Foundation Award, 1993. Nominated for National Book Award, 1974; National Book Critics Circle Award, 1980; American Book Award, 1982; New York Public Library Literary Lion, 1988 and 1996; National Magazine Award, 1989; Boston Public Library Literary Light, 1995. Elected to American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1982. Has juried competitions for the J.S. Guggenheim Foundation, New York State Arts Council Virginia Commission for the Arts, Oregon State Arts Council, Breadloaf Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Letters, etc. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2011 John Burroughs Medal, 2012