Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen (1927–2014) was born in New York City into a prosperous family — his father was an architect and trustee of the National Audubon Society. He became one of the most extraordinary figures in postwar American literature: a novelist of experimental ambition, a naturalist of global range, a co-founder of The Paris Review, a CIA operative, an explorer who journeyed to the remotest corners of every continent, and an ordained Zen Buddhist priest. No other American writer combined these roles.

Life and Career

Matthiessen attended Hotchkiss and Yale, where he studied with R.P. Blackmur. In Paris in 1953, at twenty-six, he co-founded The Paris Review with Harold “Doc” Humes and George Plimpton — it was later revealed that the CIA had helped fund the magazine, and that Matthiessen himself had been a CIA agent, his literary cover providing access to the Parisian left. He claimed he left the agency after a few years, disillusioned.

His first novel, Race Rock (1954), was a realist work in the manner of Fitzgerald, but Matthiessen quickly moved toward more ambitious and unconventional fiction. At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965), set among missionaries and indigenous peoples in the Amazon, is his most acclaimed novel — a dense, morally complex exploration of cultural collision and spiritual yearning.

Matthiessen was also one of America’s finest nature writers. Wildlife in America (1959) was a landmark study of endangered species. He travelled compulsively — New Guinea, East Africa, the Amazon, Antarctica, the Australian outback, Siberia — and produced a series of travel-and-nature books distinguished by their literary quality: The Cloud Forest (1961), Under the Mountain Wall (1962), The Tree Where Man Was Born (1972).

The Snow Leopard (1978) is his masterpiece. An account of a trek into the Crystal Mountain region of Nepal with the biologist George Schaller, ostensibly to study the Himalayan blue sheep, the book is simultaneously a nature narrative, a Zen meditation, and a memoir of grief — Matthiessen’s second wife, Deborah Love, had died of cancer shortly before the journey. It won the National Book Award for nonfiction.

Far Tortuga (1975) is his most formally experimental novel: the story of a turtle-fishing voyage in the Caribbean, told almost entirely in dialogue and white space, with illustrations and typographic play.

In his later years, Matthiessen devoted himself to Shadow Country (2008), a single-volume revision of his Watson trilogy (Killing Mister Watson, 1990; Lost Man’s River, 1997; Bone by Bone, 1999) about the historical figure Edgar Watson in the Florida Everglades. Shadow Country won the National Book Award for fiction.

He was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest and took the name Muryo. He died on 5 April 2014 at his home in Sagaponack, Long Island.

Major Works and Themes

Matthiessen’s work orbits the intersection of wilderness, spirituality, and violence. Whether he is writing about jaguars, Zen, the Pine Ridge reservation, or turtle fishermen, the essential question is the same: how does one live with full attention in a world of suffering and beauty?

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983), his account of the Leonard Peltier case and the FBI’s war against the American Indian Movement, was suppressed for years by libel suits and remains one of the bravest works of American journalism.

The CIA and The Paris Review

The revelation that Matthiessen co-founded The Paris Review while serving as a CIA agent has permanently complicated his literary legacy. The magazine — which became the most important literary quarterly of the postwar era — was partly funded by the CIA as part of the agency’s Cold War cultural offensive. Matthiessen maintained that the magazine’s literary independence was genuine and that the CIA had no influence on its editorial content, but the association between America’s most prestigious literary journal and its intelligence apparatus remains troubling.

The episode illuminates a broader truth about Matthiessen: he was a man who lived at the intersection of privilege and conscience, whose wealth and social position gave him access to worlds — the CIA, the Amazon, the Himalayas, the American Indian Movement — that most writers could never reach. Whether this makes him an exemplary adventurer-intellectual or a wealthy man playing at radicalism depends on one’s perspective. The work itself — particularly The Snow Leopard and In the Spirit of Crazy Horse — answers the question convincingly.

Critical Reception and Legacy

Matthiessen was admired by critics and fellow writers but never achieved the popular fame his talent warranted — his books were too varied, too demanding, and too unclassifiable. His reputation has grown since his death, and he is increasingly recognised as one of the most important American nature writers and one of the few postwar novelists whose ambition matched his range.

Key Works

• Race Rock (1954)
• Wildlife in America (1959)
• At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965)
• Far Tortuga (1975)
• The Snow Leopard (1978)
• In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983)
• Shadow Country (2008)

Collecting Matthiessen

Matthiessen first editions are collected by both literary collectors and natural-history book enthusiasts.

The Snow Leopard (1978, Viking) is the most sought-after title. First editions with jacket bring $200–$800; signed copies bring $500–$1,500.

At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965, Random House) is scarce in the dust jacket and desirable as his finest novel. First editions bring $300–$1,000.

Far Tortuga (1975, Random House) is prized by collectors of experimental fiction. Wildlife in America (1959, Viking) is collected alongside Audubon and natural-history Americana.

The Watson trilogy first editions (Killing Mister Watson, 1990; Lost Man’s River, 1997; Bone by Bone, 1999, all Random House) are more readily available but increasingly collected as a set. Signed Matthiessen material is moderately available — he was generous with inscriptions. Association copies connecting him to Paris Review figures or fellow naturalists are prized.