A New Edition for a New Path: The Revival of Green Gold

Much like plant hunter John Jeffrey, Green Gold has recently had to navigate some unexpected and challenging terrain. The journey to this new edition began following the closure of my original publisher, Unbound, which ceased operations in the summer of 2024. While the loss of such a pioneering platform for crowdfunded books was a blow to the industry, it allowed the rights for Green Gold to return home to me.

For those interested in the background of this transition, you can read more about the challenges faced by Unbound authors in this report by The Bookseller.

Rather than allowing the book to go out of ‘print’, I decided to take the explorer’s lead and forge an independent path. I have spent the intervening time ensuring that John Jeffrey’s story didn’t simply disappear with the publisher, but instead found a renewed life. In the spirit of Jeffrey’s own persistence in the wilderness, I have used this transition as an opportunity to revisit the work and release a 2nd Edition.

This is more than just a re-release; it is a refreshed, independent second edition of a story I simply wasn’t ready to let vanish into the archives. By publishing directly, I can ensure that John Jeffrey’s extraordinary 10,000-mile botanical adventure remains available to those who hear the call of the wild.

Green Gold 2nd Edition ebook

This digital version (EPUB) features the revised 2026 text. Copies are available from Amazon if you have a Kindle, or suitable for any eReader (including Kindle) direct from me – visit my Shop.

For those interested in the original 2019 print edition, I have still have some signed copies of the paperback.

Excerpt

Journal: Shasta Valley, California, 25 October 1852

I remember there was an unusually big sky that evening, and it was lonely of clouds – surely forewarning a sharp night. I raised a modest fire and added an extra layer of springy branches under my bedroll as a spectacular red sun descended between two giant boulders before me. Thus prepared I drifted to sleep, lying with some satisfaction beneath the canopy of another fine specimen of the magnificent new pine I had discovered days before (No. 731). A myriad stars flickered between the long needles on its gently swaying branches. I was reminded of Humboldt’s analogy – of the blooming, fecundity and withering of stars and planets – and the form of the great garden of the universe which now lay open before me. God had revealed his infinite mysteries.

Sometime later, while wrapped tightly in a meagre HBC blanket, my hat drawn deep down over my head, such was the cold, I was woken by a great weight upon my chest. It has been more than one month since I last enjoyed close human comfort, and I was confused, before becoming immediately alert. Yet, before I could much react, a terrible pain lanced my cheek, and I found my face to be held in a foul stinking vice. Despite finding myself quite blind, and with one arm caught under my blanket, with the other I managed to strike out. My bare hand encountered solid fur-clad muscle. So short was the coat of my foe, there was no handhold. I thought then that I was confronted, not by a grizzly, but most likely a mountain lion. I raised my legs to grapple with its body and rolled over to one side. I felt the flesh on my face tear open even as I felt for my gun. With the stock I aimed a blow blindly at its body and, on making satisfying contact, felt its jaws loosen. Yet still it did not retreat, its claws holding fast to my body. I fought viciously, with every limb and ounce of my strength, for what seemed many minutes, but must have been mere seconds, before it fled. By the time I had torn the remains of the hat off my head, I managed to glimpse only its long tail disappearing between the same two boulders between which the sun had earlier retreated. Yet there it paused to turn and stare. I feared for a moment it was to return, its unblinking eyes reflecting two startling full moons, yet it evidently decided that discretion was the better part of valour. With a turn of its head it was eclipsed by the night.

I immediately sought to rekindle the fire, which had faded to a pitiful glow. With my knife now permanently in one hand, which trembled terribly and quite without control, I heated water to tend to my face and other injuries. I slept for none of the remainder of the night, gripped, I admit, by terror, and suffering a most fearsome throbbing pain.

Naturally, I have no glass with me, so I was obliged to wait until the sun had risen before I could inspect my face on the surface of a pool in the creek. Being without the excitement of a fight to mask the pain, applying the crude stitches to my cheek hurt more than the beast’s canines.

After attending to my wounds I believe that I became quite delirious. I woke many times to find myself surprised that it was day rather than night, or vice versa. My body was often drenched with sweat and I found myself shivering, even at noon when the sun was at its zenith. My fire, however, I kept burning day and night, even though the usually simple act of gathering kindling and logs was a great burden on account of the pain.

I write now, I believe, some two days after the attack …

To read more purchase a copy from my Shop.