Books with title Wild Animals I Have Known: Wild-Animal Fiction

A collection of riveting stories about creatures great and small from Ernest Thompson Seton, the creator of realistic wild-animal fiction. Includes a foreword by Sir David Attenborough and an introduction by David L. Witt. Ernest Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known, published in 1898, was a transformative masterpiece that not only dramatically shifted the perspective of writers and readers alike, but also changed Seton himself. Through the fateful encounter with the wolf Lobo, Seton became a dedicated wildlife protector, individualizing animals and exploring their motivations, feelings, and personalities. This publication would soon contribute to the conservationist movement of the twentieth century and establish Seton as a pivotal naturalist within our history. Experience Seton’s transformation with the stories of Lobo and other creatures in his words and captivating art, and reconnect with the beauty of the wild and the interconnectedness of man and nature. Wild Animals I Have Known joins Gibbs Smith’s best-selling Wilderness series. Standing beside the works of other incredible naturalists, including Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Jack London, these essays are reissued to encourage and inspire philosophers, travelers, campers, and contemporary naturalists. Ernest Thompson Seton (1860–1946) was an author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians, and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America. He penned Wild Animals I Have Known in 1898, inventing the realistic animal story genre―and a book that would shift the perception of wild nature and that would turn generations upon generations of readers to the outdoors.

Meet Old Lobo, a gigantic gray wolf whose death-defying predations on sheep and cattle herds are the scourge of farmers and ranchers in the Currumpaw region of northern New Mexico. This great wolf is just one of the animals whose true stories come to life in this engrossing collection of tales by the celebrated naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton (1860–1946). Combining scientific observations of animals in their natural habitats with a romantic vision of nature and the narrative skills of a born storyteller, Seton created an extraordinary collection of tales that gave the animal story new force and believability as a literary genre. Critically and popularly acclaimed upon its initial appearance in 1898, Wild Animals I Have Known remains, a century later, the best-known and best-loved of his works. Each tale focuses on an individual creature: the clever crow, Silverspot; Raggylug, a young cottontail rabbit; the author's errant hound, Bingo; Redruff, a Don Valley partridge; a wild horse known as The Mustang; Vixen, The Springfield Fox; and Willy, faithful sheep-dog by day and treacherous killer by night. Seton offers affectionate but realistic portraits of each animal, stressing the commonality between his subjects and their human neighbors.In addition to his popular wildlife stories, the author is well known for his work as an illustrator and painter. This edition faithfully reproduces the layout of the original volume, as well as all 200 of the author's distinctive illustrations. Animal lovers, environmentalists, naturalists, and any reader who appreciates a lively yarn will cherish this memorable wildlife classic.

Wild animals I have known (1898) by Ernest Thompson Seton, illustrated with 200 drawings.THESE STORIES are true. The animals in this book were all real characters. They lived the lives depicted here, and showed the stamp of heroism and personality more strongly by far than it has been in the power of my pen to tell. Natural history has lost much by the vague general treatment that is so common. What satisfaction would be derived from a ten-page sketch of the habits and customs of Man? How much more profitable it would be to devote that space to the life of some one great man. This is the principle I have endeavored to apply to my animals. The real personality of the individual, and his view of life are my theme, rather than the ways of the race in general, as viewed by a casual and hostile human eye.

Ernest Thompson Seton's stories of wild animals and their wonderful ways touch the hearts of young and old. There are no happy endings in this book, because the moral is that animals always die tragic deaths. But if you want to learn the laws of nature and better understand animals and their ways, these accounts of a hunter-trapper will reward you with hours of enchanted storytelling.

From the foreword- “THESE STORIES are true. Although I have left the strict line of historical truth in many places, the animals in this book were all real characters. They lived the lives I have depicted, and showed the stamp of heroism and personality more strongly by far than it has been in the power of my pen to tell…"Such a collection of histories naturally suggests a common thought a moral it would have been called in the last century. No doubt each different mind will find a moral to its taste, but I hope some will herein find emphasized a moral as old as Scripture: we and the beasts are kin. Man has nothing that the animals have not at least a vestige of, the animals have nothing that man does not in some degree share.”