Mark Twain 
Mark Twain’s Book of Animals 

Longtime admirers of Mark Twain are aware of how integral animals were to his work as a writer, from his first stories through his final years, including many pieces that were left unpublished at his death. This beautiful volume, illustrated with 30 new images by master engraver Barry Moser, gathers writings from the full span of Mark Twain’s career and elucidates his special attachment to and regard for animals. What may surprise even longtime readers and fans is that Twain was an early and ardent animal welfare advocate, the most prominent American of his day to take up that cause. Edited and selected by Shelley Fisher Fishkin, who has also supplied an introduction and afterword,
Mark Twain’s Book of Animals includes stories that are familiar along with those that are appearing in print for the first time.

Table of Content

List of Illustrations

Introduction


Part One: 1850s and 1860s


Bugs!

Cruelty to Animals I

Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog

Fitz Smythe’s Horse

Cruelty to Animals II

The Pilgrim

The Dogs of Constantinople

Syrian Camels I

The Remarkable “Jericho”

Pilgrims on Horseback

Arabs and Their Steeds


Part Two: 1870s and 1880s


The Cayote, Allegory of Want

With a Flash and a Whiz

Syrian Camels II

The Genuine Mexican Plug

The Retired Milk Horse

An Invention to Make Flies Curse

Peter and the Pain-Killer

The Pinch-bug and the Poodle

Bugs and Birds and Tom in the Morning

A Cat-Tale

The Presumptuous Ravens

Birds with a Sense of Humor

The Idiotic Ant

Cock-fight in New Orleans

The Bricksville Loafers

A Prescription for Universal Peace


Part Three: 1890s–1910


Letters from a Dog to Another Dog Explaining and Accounting for Man

The Phenomenal Flea

Huck Kills a Bird

The Bird with the Best Grammar

Ants and the True Religion

The Sailors and the St. Bernard

Man’s Place in the Animal World

The Marvelous Moa

The Inimitable Ornithorhynchus

The Laughing Jackass of Adelaide

The Phosphorescent Sea-Serpent

The Independent-Minded Magpie

The Bird of Birds

The Deadliest Song Known to Ornithology

The Pious Chameleon

A Pocketful of Bat

Hunting the Deceitful Turkey

Letter to the London Anti-Vivisection Society

The Victims

Extracts from Adam’s Diary,

    Translated from the Original MS

Autobiography of Eve

Rosa and the Crows

Assassin

The Jungle Discusses Man

The Bee

“Was the World made for Man?”

A Dog’s Tale

Flies and Russians

Eve’s Diary. Translated from the Original

The Supremacy of the House Fly

Mrs. Clemens Corners the Market in Flies

The Edisons of the Animal World

A Horse’s Tale

Man and the Other Animals

The President Hunts a Cow

The Time I Got an Elephant for Christmas

Little Bessie Would Assist Providence

Letters from the Earth


Afterword

Note on the Texts

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

About the author

Shelley Fisher Fishkin is Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, Professor of English and Director of American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author of many books, including Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture and Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American Voices. She edited Is He Dead?, a new play by Mark Twain, and is also the editor of the 29-volume Oxford Mark Twain. Barry Moser is one of America’s foremost wood engravers and is the proprietor of the Pennyroyal Press. Among the books he has illustrated are Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Moby Dick, or The Whale, all from UC Press. The Mark Twain Project is housed within the Mark Twain Papers, the world’s largest archive of primary materials by this major American writer.