Kirkus Reviews 'The Collector shows Nisbet to be a master of the journals, letters, and contemporary accounts of David Douglas. “Nisbet’s well-researched narrative has considerable bounce and drama… It’s a portrait of a true adventurer…a solid piece of scholarship and synthesis.” “…an exhilarating biography that provides an entertaining portrait of the unfettered determination that drove one of the giants in the field of botanical exploration and infused the young nation he viewed with a keen and zealous spirit.” “Nisbet gracefully and concisely traces Douglas’ journey from a gardener’s apprentice in Scotland to a young botanist-collector.” “…a compelling look into what the world here was like just before widespread white settlement.” “In telling Douglas' story, Nisbet evokes a lost world of early exploration, pristine nature, ambition, and cultural and class conflict with surprisingly modern resonances.”

Nisbet takes us on the ultimate naturalist’s tour of a largely

'Jack Nisbet’s brisk, thrilling accoun allows us to walk, ride, and paddle along with David Douglas, the tireless nineteenth-century Scotsman whose name is attached to Cascadia’s iconic fir. “An exhilarating biography that provides an entertaining portrait of the unfettered determination that drove one of the giants in the field of botanical exploration and infused the young nation he viewed with a keen and zealous spirit.” Booklist “In telling Douglas’s story, Nisbet evokes a lost world of early exploration, pristine nature, ambition, and cultural and class conflict with surprisingly modern resonances.” Bookmarks Magazine The book takes readers along on Douglas’s journeys into a literal brave new world of then-obscure realms from Puget Sound to the Sandwich Islands. Douglas’s discoveries include hundreds of western plants–most notably the Douglas Fir. The Collector tracks Douglas’s fascinating history, from his humble birth in Scotland in 1799 to his botanical training under the famed William Jackson Hooker, and details his adventures in North America discovering exotic new plants for the English and European market. Equal parts biography, natural history, and travelogue, Jack Nisbet tells the story of David Douglas, the 19th century Scottish naturalist and botanical explorer-perfect for amateur naturalists and armchair historians of the Pacific Northwest

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