This summer, Star Route Books published a three-volume treasury of stories, poems, and illustrations from the pen and imagination of the iconic naturalist, artist and author, Emma Bell Miles (1879–1919), about life in her beloved, southern Appalachian mountains:

• The Spirit of the Mountains and Select Works of Emma Bell Miles
• Our Southern Birds and the Fountain Square Conversations by Emma Bell Miles
• Stories of the Mountains – Selected Short Stories by Emma Bell Miles

Miles was a wife and mother whose poems and short stories appeared in national magazines in the early 1900s. She sold her first poem to Harper’s Monthly in 1904, and was probably best known for the book The Spirit of the Mountains, a year later.

In our edition of Spirit of the Mountains we’ve included selected poetry and newspaper essays by the author.

Our book, Stories of the Mountains is a collection of seventeen short stories that were originally published in magazines from 1908 through 1921.

Mrs. Miles’ adult life was filled with poverty and health issues. She endured a troubled marriage. She was interested in women’s rights and suffrage and in her writing, she explores great and positive and complex ideas– as well as intimate, personal descriptions of the natural world around her.

Emma Bell Miles passed away at the age of just 39 from tuberculosis. Her last effort, the book, Our Southern Birds, was published posthumously in 1922. It was later adopted as a textbook by the states of Kentucky and Tennessee.

The Star Route edition includes selections from her newspaper series, The Fountain Square Conversations, in which she recounts conversations and opinions of the surprisingly articulate birds who would visit the Fireman’s Fountain, in Chattanooga.

Star Route Books is proud to be able to help make available, once again, the timeless writings from this great author. For more information, and to purchase, visit www.starroutebooks.com.