An 1898 book by naturalist and author Ernest Thompson Seton. The first entry in a new genre of realistic wild-animal fiction, Seton's first collection of short stories quickly became one of the most popular books of its day. "Lobo, the King of Currumpaw", the first story in the collection, was based upon Seton's experience hunting wolves in the southwestern United States. It became a classic, setting the tone for his future works that would similarly depict animals—especially predators who were often demonized in literature—as compassionate, individualistic beings. Warning: template has been deprecated.
This Wikisource edition is based on a December 1900 reprint.
123711Wild Animals I Have Known1898Ernest Thompson Seton
CRITICAL NOTICES
It should be put with Kipling and Hans Christian Andersen as a classic.
—The Athenaeum.
Mr. Seton-Thompson holds our unflagging interest in his stories. . . . In both modes of expression [pen and pencil] he shows himself easily master of his subject.
—New York Nation.
Should become a nursery classic.—Pall Mall Gazette (London).
There is enough of the thrilling, the grewsome, and the heroic in the volume to satisfy any child, and the illustrations are graceful and clever.
—Westminster Gazette (London).
The book is a charming literary conceit, and is entirely unique and off the usual lines.—Buffalo (N. Y.) Commercial.
Mr. Seton-Thompson tells some wonder tales that cannot fail to interest. Eight brilliantly interesting sketches.—Boston Globe.
Conveys subtly and unconsciously the higher beauty of the moral laws which nature has set up.—Brooklyn Eagle.
A well-written and well-illustrated book.—The Spectator (London).
Mr. Seton-Thompson is the Carlyle of the animal world outside man. . . . We marvel at the psychological sympathy with the characters of this more than interesting book.—The Zoologist (London.)
These eight short tales surpass in interest and verisimilitude anything Kipling's "Jungle Tales" or "Uncle Remus" possess for their readers.
There is nothing in modern story-telling which equals the tale of the capture and humiliation of the Pacing Mustang by the treacherous snare of Old Turkeytrack. The story of the dog Bingo is a classic, while "Wully," the double-lived "yaller-dog," the Jekyl and Hyde of dogdom in literature, stands unique and inapproachable.
In depicting animal life and animal character, Mr. Seton-Thompson has probably no peer in this country, and this delightful volume of his shows us that his pen is as mighty as his marvellous pencil and brush.—New York Mail and Express.
It can be read to advantage by either adult or child. "The Pacing Mustang" and "Wully," the story of a yaller dog, are stories that delight the reader.
The artistic work of the book is by Mrs. Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson, to whose valuable assistance her husband, the author, pays tribute.—New Haven Union.
The originality and freshness of these stories is irresistible. Lobo is probably the most wonderful true story of wild-animal cunning that has appeared in English so far. . . . These stories will be read and treasured long after the "Jungle Stories" have been forgotten.—Mr. William T. Hornaday, Director N, Y. Zoological Park, in Recreation for December.
Here is a book worth while. He writes like a naturalist and a poet combined. He has Kipling's gift of making you know and sympathize with wild animals. He helps one to get their point of view.
Mr. Seton-Thompson's book sets a new mark in natural-history studies.
Buffalo (N. Y.) Express.
At first sight this highly artistic book might not seem germane to anthropology; yet on careful perusal it is found to deal, on nearly every page, with characteristics shared by lower animals and men especially men of the lower culture-grades. Mr. Seton-Thompson is a naturalist, as his record shows, an artist of notable strength and facility, as his effective picturing proves, and a writer of ability and skill (not to say genius), as his vivid and lucid sentences and the delicately woven web of each of his chapters testify eloquently. . . . The book indeed is a revelation.
—Prof. W. J. McGre in American Anthropologist.
. . . A better attempt than Kipling's to restore the kinship of man and the animals in Mr. Ernest Seton-Thompson's book. This is woodcraft lived before our eyes.—New York Times.
A book that will afford genuine delight to all lovers of animals. Mr. Seton-Thompson is the illustrator as well as the writer of the book, and shows himself equally clever with pen and pencil. The volume is a quaint and beautiful specimen of bookmaking, and should be kept in mind.—New York Examiner.
A charming book. . . . The full-page illustrations and the decorated margins make the work as attractive on the side of art as on the side of nature. It will be a strong competitor with Kipling's "Jungle Stories" for the suffrages of the young folks.
—New York Outlook.
. . . One of the most valuable contributions to animal psychology and biography that has yet appeared.—J. A. Allen in the American Naturalist.
Ernest Seton-Thompson is known to be an expert in his line. Therefore his book compels our respect, even before we investigate the biographies. Lobo's story is one of the most romantic and thrilling known among men, to say nothing of wolves. The "Jungle Book" is not more sympathetic in tone, and not more magnetic in appeal.
—Chicago (Ill.) Times-Herald.
Undoubtedly the most unusual and attractive volume for young readers that has come to us this year.—New York Review of Reviews.
There is a wonderful pathos in these narrations. The stories of "Bingo" and Vixen, the Springfield Fox, are classics in their way.
—Washington (D. C.) Evening Star.
Nothing better than the "Story of Lobo" could be desired. . . . It is his final triumph as a story-teller that, when superior human cunning has at last prevailed, the entrapped hero is still permitted to keep the reader's admiration and interest on his side.—New York Nation.
Mr. Seton-Thompson is now drawing the best mammals of any American artist. . . . This is artistic fidelity to nature in high degree. . . . Nothing of equal simplicity could be more effective than these little marginal oddities and whimsies. The book is thoroughly good, both in purpose and execution.
First Impression October 20 1898
Second Impression December 10 1898
Third Impression December 28 1898
Fourth Impression April 29 1899
Fifth Impression June 21 1899
Sixth Impression August 1 1899
Seventh Impression December 16 1899
Eighth Impression January 4 1900
Ninth Impression February 8 1900
Tenth Impression April 16 1900
Eleventh Impression August 16 1900
Twelfth Impression September 27 1900
Thirteenth Impression December 15 1900
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1898, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1946, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 77 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
