| Animal Heroes Contributor(s): Seton, Ernest Thompson (Author) |
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ISBN: 1499601549 ISBN-13: 9781499601541 Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform OUR PRICE: $7.55 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: May 2014 * Not available - Not in print at this time * |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History - Nature | Animals - Mammals |
| Dewey: FIC |
| Physical Information: 0.37" H x 5.98" W x 9.02" (0.53 lbs) 174 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The great nature writer, Ernest Thompson Seton produced another nature classic with Animal Heroes, a work which celebrates the qualities of heroism that the author witnessed in several wild animals. "A hero is an individual of unusual gifts and achievements. Whether it be man or animal, this definition applies; and it is the histories of such that appeal to the imagination and to the hearts of those who hear them."Contents: The slum cat -- Arnaux, the chronicle of a homing pigeon -- Badlands Billy, the wolf that won -- The boy and the lynx -- Little Warhorse, the history of a jack-rabbit -- Snap, the story of a bull-terrier -- The Winnipeg wolf -- The legend of the white reindeer.Ernest Thompson Seton (born Ernest Evan Thompson August 14, 1860 - died October 23, 1946) was an author (published in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the US), wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians in 1902 (renamed Woodcraft League of America) and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in 1910. Seton also influenced Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting. His notable books related to Scouting include The Birch Bark Roll and the Boy Scout Handbook. He is responsible for the appropriation and incorporation of what he believed to be American Indian elements into the traditions of the BSA.Seton was born in South Shields, County Durham (now part of South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear), England of Scottish parents. His family emigrated to Canada in 1866. Most of his childhood was spent in Toronto, Ontario. As a youth, he retreated to the woods to draw and study animals as a way of avoiding his abusive father. He won a scholarship in art to the Royal Academy in London, England.On his twenty-first birthday, Seton's father presented him with an invoice for all the expenses connected with his childhood and youth, including the fee charged by the doctor who delivered him. He paid the bill, but never spoke to his father again.Ernest changed his name to Ernest Thompson Seton, believing that Seton had been an important family name. He became successful as a writer, artist and naturalist, and moved to New York City to further his career. Seton later lived at Wyndygoul, an estate that he built in Cos Cob, a section of Greenwich, Connecticut. After experiencing vandalism by the local youth, Seton invited them to his estate for a weekend where he told them what he claimed were stories of the American Indians and of nature.He formed the Woodcraft Indians in 1902 and invited the local youth to join. Despite the name, the group was made up of non-native boys and girls. The stories became a series of articles written for the Ladies Home Journal, and were eventually collected in The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians in 1906.Seton was an early pioneer of the modern school of animal fiction writing, his most popular work being Wild Animals I Have Known (1898), which contains the story of his killing of the wolf Lobo. He later became involved in a literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy, after John Burroughs published an article in 1903 in the Atlantic Monthly attacking writers of sentimental animal stories. The controversy lasted for four years and included important American environmental and political figures of the day, including President Theodore Roosevelt.In 1907, Seton and the naturalist Edward Alexander Preble verified a claim from ten years earlier by the frontiersman Charles "Buffalo" Jones that Jones and his hunting party of musk oxen had shot and fended off a hungry wolf pack near the Great Slave Lake in Canada. Seton and Preble discovered the remains of the animals near Jones's long abandoned cabin. |