Animal stories captured the attention of the August 2023 meeting. Collectors took us on a figurative safari of fiction and nonfiction works which tell stories of animals. Fictional stories included both anthropomorphized animals as the central characters and animals in their natural state, from protagonists to villains. The genres ranged from folklore to fantasy to horror. Nonfiction works came from naturalists and animal welfare advocates. The final offering is not an animal story book, but the copy itself bears a surprising provenance connecting two well-known animal story writers.
Fiction
Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings
Harris, Joel Chandler.
Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1921. A later reprint of the new and revised
edition with illustrations by Arthur Burdette Frost. First published in book form in 1880, Harris’s
Uncle Remus stories began as a column in The Atlanta Constitution newspaper
beginning in 1876. Harris penned the
oral tradition animal stories he heard as a teenager from African American
slaves at the Turnwold Plantation while he was working as a printer’s
apprentice for The Countryman newspaper.
Through the voice of his invented Uncle Remus, Harris introduced the
folklore characters Brer (Brother) or Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Fox, Miss Cow, Mr. Possum,
Mr. Wolf, the Deceitful Frogs, and a menagerie of other humanized animals to
new audiences.
Walt Disney's Uncle Remus Stories
Harris, Joel Chandler and Marion Palmer. Walt Disney’s Uncle Remus Stories. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946. Retold by Marion Palmer from the original "Uncle
Remus" stories by Joel Chandler Harris.
Pictures by Al Dempster and Bill Justice, adapted from the characters
and backgrounds created for the Walt Disney motion picture Song of the South
and other Walt Disney adaptations of the original "Uncle Remus"
stories. The publication of the book
coincided with the release of Song of the South in 1946.
Lobo, Rag & Vixen
Seton, Ernest Thompson.
Lobo, Rag, and Vixen and Pictures. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1914. The four stories contained in Lobo, Rag,
and Vixen were first published in Wild Animals I Have Known in 1898. The stories of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug, and Vixen
were extracted to their own book in 1900, with illustrations by Seton. Seton’s fictional stories grew out of his experience
as a naturalist. The first story in the
collection, "Lobo the King of Currumpaw," was based upon his
experience hunting wolves in the southwestern United States. "Lobo" set the tone for his works,
depicting wild animals—even predators—as compassionate, individualistic creatures. Seton is credited with pioneering the genre
of animal fiction.
Animal Heroes and Wild Animals at Home
Seton, Ernest Thompson.
Animal Heroes: Being the Histories of a Cat, a Dog, a Pigeon, a Lynx,
Two Wolves and a Reindeer. Toronto:
Morang & Company, Ltd., 1905. Illustrated
with over 200 drawings by Seton. Eight
stories of animals struggling for their existence, based on the author's
detailed observations of real animals.
Seton, Ernest Thompson.
Wild Animals at Home. Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1913.
Illustrated with over 150 sketches and photographs by Seton. A collection of stories drawn from Seton’s observations
of wild animals in their natural habitats of the Rocky Mountains and
Yellowstone National Park. He regularly
toured the entirety of the Rocky Mountains, from British Columbia to Mexico,
over a period of thirty years, and described Yellowstone as "the great
mountain haven of wild life" (Foreword).
The Call of the Wild
London, Jack. The
Call of the Wild. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1903. Illustrated
by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull. Buck, 140-pound St. Bernard–Scotch Collie mix,
is stolen from his ranch in California and sold into service as a sled dog in
Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush. The
harsh conditions in Yukon cause Buck to grow feral as he adapts to the
wilderness. After his master's death, he
becomes free of humans and relies on instinct to live and become a leader of
dogs in the wild.
The Red Pony
Steinbeck, John. The
Red Pony. New York: Viking Press,
1945. Illustrated by Wesley Dennis. The Red Pony was first published in
magazines from 1933 to 1936. The
complete story was published in 1937 by Covici Friede in paperback. Viking published this slip-cased hardcover in
1945. The four episodic stories in the
book are tales of a young boy named Jody Tiflin and his life on his father's
ranch in California. The novella was adapted
for film and released by Republic Pictures in 1949, starring Myrna Loy and
Robert Mitchum. An updated version was
made for television in 1973, starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara.
Animal Farm
Orwell, George. Animal
Farm. New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company, 1946. An allegorical animal
tale in which a group of farm animals rebel against their human farmer, seeking
to create a society where animals are free and equal. The rebellion collapses under the
dictatorship of a pig, and the farm devolves to a state worse than before the
animals rose up.
Animal Farm
Orwell, George. Animal
Farm. London: Folio Society, 2000. Illustrated by Quentin Blake. In the Preface to the 1947 Ukrainian edition
of the book, Orwell described his inspiration for the story's setting:
I saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old,
driving a huge carthorse along a narrow path, whipping it whenever it tried to
turn. It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength we
should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same
way as the rich exploit the proletariat.
Watership Down
Adams, Richard. Watership
Down. New York: Macmillan Publishing
Co., 1973. An epic tale of a drove
of rabbits who must escape the destruction of their warren and seek a new home,
encountering danger and temptation along the way. The rabbits ultimately establish a new warren
on the hill of Watership Down. Adams
originally improvised the stories of the rabbits for his daughters during long
car trips. They insisted he write them
down, which he did in the evenings over the course of a year and a half. The book is dedicated to his daughters,
Juliet and Rosamund.
Jaws
Benchley, Peter. Jaws. Irvine, CA: Suntup Editions, 2022. Jaws was first published in 1974. This large hardcover format with a slipcase is
limited to 1,000 copies and is illustrated and signed by John Anthony Di
Giovanni. It contains a new introduction
by Wendy Benchley, the wife of the author, and additional content from the
Peter Benchley archives. Jaws
tells the story of a large great white shark which preys upon a Long Island resort
town and the three men who attempt to kill it.
The story was adapted to film in 1975.
Alligator
Katz, Shelley. Alligator. New York: Dell, 1977. Alligator is a Jaws clone
featuring a 20-foot-long killer alligator terrorizing the Everglades and the
two men who are determined to kill it. This
first edition was published in paperback by Dell in 1977. David Foster Wallace, author of the classic
novel Infinite Jest, selected Alligator for his list of the ten
best American novels ever written.
Alligator
Katz, Shelley. Alligator. Lakewood, CA: Centipede Press, 2022. Signed limited edition of 500 copies. Dustjacket art by Ruth Sanderson, interior
art by Bo Myles, and calligraphy by Gavin Lees.
Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis
Lewis, C. S. Boxen:
The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1985. A posthumously published collection of stories
Lewis wrote as a child about a fictional world he called Animal-Land, inspired
by Beatrix Potter's animal stories. Lewis wrote the stories during an influenza quarantine,
while his brother Warren wrote stories about exotic India. The boys brought their respective stories
together to create the world of Boxen.
Roverandom
Tolkien, J. R. R. Roverandom. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998. Edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. Roverandom originated as an improvised
story Tolkien made up in 1925 to console his son, Michael, who lost his toy dog
on a beach. In Tolkien's story, Rover is
a real dog which is magically transformed into a toy dog. Rover must seek out the wizard who changed
him in order to be returned to his true form.
The Council of Animals
McDonell, Nick. The
Council of Animals. New York: Henry
Holt and Company, 2021. The few
humans who survived "The Calamity" struggle to survive. The animals—including a dog, a cat, a horse,
a baboon, a bear, and a crow—now convene to decide the fate of the remaining humans. Should they help them or eat them?
Nonfiction
Hunter's Choice
Rutledge, Archibald.
Hunter's Choice. West
Hartford, VT: The Countryman Press, 1946.
Illustrated by Paul Bransom.
Limited edition of 475 numbered copies signed by the author and artist. Rutledge was a naturalist and sportsman who described
hunting as an integral part of his life from an early age. Hunter's Choice contains anecdotes and
reminiscences ranging from how to train startling dogs for bird hunting to how he
coaxed a buck past the stand of a lady hunter while leading a deer drive.
Animal Tracks
Murie, Olaus. Animal
Tracks. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press,
1985. Part of the Easton Press 50th
Anniversary edition of Roger Tory Peterson Field Guides, based on Murie's
updated second edition including photographs and line drawings of animal tracks
and signs (think poop). A Field Guide
to Animal Tracks was first published in 1954 as part of The Peterson
Field Guide Series. The volume
includes natural history stories and descriptions of the habitats, tracks,
signs, habits, and ranges of all the mammals of North America.
The Bedside Book of Birds and The Bedside Book of Beasts
Gibson, Graeme. The
Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany.
New York: Doubleday, 2005. Gibson,
an avid birdwatcher, explores the relationship between humans and birds through
a collection of excerpts from a variety of writings including mythology and
folklore, religion and philosophy, science, travel writing, and classic
literature.
Gibson, Graeme. The
Bedside Book of Beasts: A Wildlife Miscellany. New York: Doubleday, 2009. In a companion to The Bedside Book of
Birds, Gibson explores the relationship between predators and their prey. Gibson curates texts and images from mythical
Minotaurs and Leviathans to real-life big cats and tiny praying mantises to illustrate
the complex connection between the hunter and the hunted.
Mark Twain's Book of Animals
Twain, Mark. Mark
Twain's Book of Animals. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 2009. Edited with introduction, afterword, and notes
by Shelley Fisher Fishkin. Illustrated
by Barry Moser. This volume is a
collection of stories excerpted from Twain's works, including familiar titles
as well as previously unpublished drafts.
Fishkin selects stories which show how integral animals were to Twain's
stories, such as Jim Smiley's celebrated jumping frog, Fitz Smythe's horse, a
letter from a dog to another dog explaining humans, and a phenomenal flea.
Tangent
The Lost Childhood
Greene, Graham. The
Lost Childhood and Other Essays.
London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1951. This copy of Greene’s collection of literary
criticism essays comes from the personal library of Richard Adams and bears his
bookplate and ownership signature. The
book appears unread except for the essay on Beatrix Potter, where Adams has written
notes in the margins. Adams pushes back
on an assertion Greene makes about Peter Rabbit, and even quotes Potter
directly in defense of Peter Rabbit.
"Beatrix Potter" with annotations by Richard Adams
The Lost Childhood was published in 1951, and Adams’s
Watership Down was published in 1972 (see above). While Adams’s penciled comments are not
dated, it is fun to wonder if Adams entered into this conversation with Greene
and Potter prior to, or possibly while, writing Watership Down, and whether
or not it played any role in writing his novel about rabbits. This copy is fascinating in that you see a
writer about rabbits interacting with another rabbit writer. It is clear from his comments that Adams is
well versed in Beatrix Potter’s animal stories, and it is intriguing to
speculate on the influence Potter may have had on Watership Down.
