Edward Hoagland

Edward Hoagland (born December 21, 1932, New York, New York, U.S.—died February 17, 2026, New York, New York) was an American novelist, travel writer, and essayist noted especially for his writings about nature and wildlife. His work drew comparisons to classic nature writers such as Henry David Thoreau and John Muir and praise from his contemporaries, including Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates. Hoagland also wrote about his personal challenges, such as his lifelong speech impediment, bouts with severe vision impairment, and marital failures.

Background

Hoagland came from a well-to-do family; his father was a lawyer for Standard Oil. When Hoagland was eight years old, his family moved from Manhattan to Connecticut. From an early age he had a stutter, which he described as “vocal handcuffs.” He never overcame the condition, but he found solace in books, writing, reading, and walking in the countryside.

Novels and short stories

Hoagland sold his first novel, Cat Man (1956), shortly before graduating from Harvard University (A.B., 1954). He had a series of colorful odd jobs, including working at a circus and fighting wildfires with the U.S. Forest Service in California. After serving in the U.S. Army (1955–57), he wrote The Circle Home (1960), set in the seedy world of prizefighting, and The Peacock’s Tail (1965). Both novels are noted for their sympathetic portrayals of impoverished, struggling people. His fourth novel, Seven Rivers West (1986), tells of the cultural collision between white railroad builders and Indigenous people in western Canada during the 1880s. His later novels include Children Are Diamonds: An African Apocalypse (2013) and In the Country of the Blind (2016).

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He also published the short-story collections City Tales (1986), The Final Fate of the Alligators (1992), and The Devil’s Tub (2014).

Travel and autobiographical writings

Hoagland’s travel books include Notes from the Century Before: A Journal from British Columbia (1969), African Calliope: A Journey to the Sudan (1979; a finalist for a National Book Award in the paperback category), Early in the Season: A British Columbia Journal (2008), and Alaskan Travels: Far-Flung Tales of Love and Adventure (2012). Perhaps his best work is his nature essays and editorials, which combine a lifelong fondness for wilderness with his characteristic close observation. His essays are collected in The Courage of Turtles (1971), Walking the Dead Diamond River (1973; a National Book Award finalist in the arts and letters category), The Moose on the Wall: Field Notes from the Vermont Wilderness (1974), Red Wolves and Black Bears (1976), The Edward Hoagland Reader (1979), Balancing Acts (1992), Tigers & Ice (1999), and Hoagland on Nature (2003).

Hoagland also wrote a memoir, Compass Points: How I Lived (2001), which details his experience with blindness, caused by cataracts that had developed in middle age. An operation corrected the condition but only temporarily. As he documented in a 2016 essay published in The New York Times, his vision impairment recurred as he grew older. His novel In the Country of the Blind also draws upon this turn of events.

Personal life and teaching career

Hoagland was married and divorced twice, first to Amy Ferrara and then to Commentary editor Marion Magid, with whom he had a daughter. He taught at several colleges and universities, including Bennington College in Vermont from 1963 to 2005.

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