Essays Contents
Carla Emery
October 25, 2023
"Encyclopedia of Country Living"
Amazon book link
Originally titled "Carla Emery's Old Fashioned Recipe Book"
Esther Emery (my post "Patterns") is the daughter of
Carla Emery...!!
Carla Emery wrote one of the first comprehensive books on homesteading.
When I googled it and saw the green book... I sat amazed for a moment.
I had bought this book in the 1970's and may still have it in a storage box...!
This is one of my most precious saves from... oh... so many moves.
OMG -- such a great book!!
Carla also wrote a book on the dangers of hypnosis.
Some great links!!
"Carla Emery"
wikipedia link
archived wikipedia link
Carla Emery website
archived
Carla Emery's newsletters
archived
blogspot: "Encyclopedia of Country Living"
link
Biography
Emery was born in Los Angeles where her parents had gone in search of
employment after being displaced from their home in Washington state
by a crop failure. Emery grew up as a rancher's daughter in Montana
after her parents moved there during her infancy
(her father, Carl Harshbarger, had worked as chauffeur for
Dorothy Lamour in Los Angeles for about two years, and had saved
enough funds to buy some land there).
Emery was a proponent of organic farming, the "back-to-the-land movement", and author of the Encyclopedia of Country Living. Emery opened the
"School of Country Living" in Kendrick, Idaho in 1976, with her husband
Mike Emery, to teach homesteading skills. The "School" was destroyed by
a flash flood the next year, and could not successfully be reestablished.
Mike and Carla divorced in 1985. Carla married constitutionalist legal
scholar (with a special interest in Title 18, Oath of Office) Donald DeLong
November 25, 2000 and moved to San Simon, Arizona.
Carla self-published the first mimeographed edition of the Encyclopedia
under the title An Old-Fashioned Recipe Book. Although she began
intending to write a book, she published it in installments starting in
1970 as she wrote it, as if it were a newsletter. The first complete book
was finished in March 1974.
By the end of 1975, she had sold 13,000 copies. Around that time the book
was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the "largest mimeographed
volume in general circulation" (700 pages) and was listed as having sold
the most copies of a self-published guide: 45,000 mimeographed copies as
of 1977. The author believed that it might set a record for the most
typographical errors in a book of its size, but reported that she did not
have time to count them.
In the mid-1970s Emery made several television appearances, including
on "The Mike Douglas Show", Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" and
"Good Morning, America", and even demonstrated goat-milking on
"Donahue".
Emery's book did not find a commercial publisher until the 7th edition
when it was published by Bantam in 1977. The most recent edition of the
Encyclopedia, the "updated 10th edition," was published by Sasquatch
Books in 2008. A new "40th Anniversary Edition" was made available
October 31, 2012, published by Sasquatch Books.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living presents an exhaustive overview
of virtually every topic relevant to homesteading and self-sufficiency.
During the 1990s, Emery researched somnambulism, hypnosis, and
mind control. Because of a personal history as a victim of hypnotism
abuse, she wrote a second book, Secret, Don't Tell: The Encyclopedia of
Hypnotism. By writing this, she hoped to help others who found
themselves with the same distressful fate. The book criticizes hypnosis
in general, and what the author considered to be its unethical uses.
On October 11, 2005, while on a speaking tour, Emery died in
Odessa, Texas from complications of pneumonia. She was surrounded
by all of her family.
See also:
Back-to-the-land movement
Organic agriculture
Self-sufficiency
Interactionism
Mind control
Somniloquy
Posthypnotic amnesia
History of hypnosis
Project MKUltra
"Encyclopedia of Country Living"
Amazon book link
Originally titled "Carla Emery's Old Fashioned Recipe Book"
Some great links!!
"Carla Emery"
wikipedia link
archived wikipedia link
Carla Emery website
archived
Carla Emery's newsletters
archived
blogspot: "Encyclopedia of Country Living"
link
