The Hamish Hamilton edition followed a year after the American outing of Silent Spring and coincided with two devastating agricultural accidents in the UK (the 'Smarden incident' in Kent and a second toxic waste spill in Merthyr Tydfil), leading Carson's book to play a crucial role in influencing public opinion and swelling grassroots environmental movements on both sides of the Atlantic. The year, 1963, was also significant for another iteration of Silent Spring: CBS' The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, which brought Carson's argument to an even wider US public than had been achieved by its serialisation in The New Yorker and its selection for the Book-of-the-Month Club. While 1963 also saw Carson awarded a slew of prizes, it was darkened by her ill health and the radiation therapy for breast cancer. Carson died in spring 1964 at the age of 56. Linda Lear (1997) Rachel Carson: The life of the author of Silent Spring (London: Allen Lane/ The Penguin Press); J.F.M. Clark (2017) 'Pesticides, Pollution and the UK's Silent Spring, 1963--4: Poison in the garden of England' Notes and Records, 71 (London: Royal Society, pp. 297-327). Seller Inventory # 2396