William Joseph Long (1866–1952) was an American writer, naturalist and minister. He lived and worked in Stamford, Connecticut as a minister of the First Congregationalist Church. As a naturalist, he went to travel to "the wilderness" of Maine. He wrote of these wilderness experiences in the books Ways of Wood Folk, Wilderness Ways, Wood-folk Comedies, Northern Trails, Wood Folk at School, and many others. His earlier books were illustrated by Charles Copeland; two later ones were illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull.
Late nineteenth-century naturalist William J. Long invites us in to the secret worlds of the woodland animals. Containing Long's own animal observations along with stories related to him by other humans who inhabit the woods, these stories give us an insight into the behavior of wild animals as they go about their lives in their own secret places deep in the forests of eastern North America.
