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Meet Old Lobo, a gigantic grey 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, more than 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 Wully, 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 neighbours.
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.
Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946) was born in England and moved with his family to Canada in 1866. As a young man, he became intrigued with the wild animals that lived in the woods outside his home. In 1882 he began systematic studies of animals while homesteading in Manitoba, in the United States. An important part of his work was to draw and paint the animals he observed. During his subsequent career as a naturalist, Seton wrote and illustrated hundreds of scholarly and popular articles, stories, and more than forty books about wild animals. The books include Wild Animals I Have Known (1898), Lives of the Hunted (1901), Animal Heroes (1905), The Biography of a Silver Fox (1909), Life Histories of Northern Animals (1909), Wild Animals at Home (1913), and Lives of Game Animals (1925-1928).
