Lyons Press?! On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 5:40 AM, Clay Shannon <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > They both sound very appealing; my personal favorite "critter" is the > Duckb= > illed Platypus, which Twain mentions by its scientific/Latin name in > Follow= > ing the Equator, and even waxes poetic about it, I think.=C2=A0- B. Clay > Sh= > annon > > From: Barbara Schmidt <[log in to unmask]> > To: [log in to unmask] > Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2016 4:33 AM > Subject: BOOK REVIEWS: _Mark Twain for Cat Lovers_, Dawidziak; _Mark > Twain= > for Dog Lovers_, Rasmussen > =20 > The following review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by Kevin Mac > Donnell. > ~~~~~ > > BOOK REVIEWS: > > > _Mark Twain for Cat Lovers: True and Imaginary Adventures with Feline > Friends_. Mark Dawidziak. Lyons Press, 2016. Pp. 188. Hardcover $17.95. > ISBN 978-1-4930-1957-1 (hardcover). ISBN 978-1-4930-2709-5 (ebook). > > > _Mark Twain for Dog Lovers: True and Imaginary Adventures with Man's Best > Friend_. R. Kent Rasmussen. Lyons Press, 2016. Pp. 202. Hardcover $17.95. > ISBN 978-1-4930-1958-8 (hardcover). ISBN 978-1-4930-2710-1 (ebook). > > Many books reviewed on the Mark Twain Forum are available at discounted > prices from the Twain Web Bookstore. Purchases from this site generate > commissions that benefit the Mark Twain Project. Please visit < > http://www.twainweb.net> > > > Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by: > Kevin Mac Donnell > > > Copyright (c) 2016 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or > redistributed in any medium without permission. > > > Animals are prominent in Mark Twain's writings. A frog brought him his > first national fame--actually, two frogs--one that hopped and one that did > not. A dog tells one story (although Mark Twain's name appears as author), > and a horse and an elephant are each the focus of other stories. Blue jays > and crows behave exactly like humans. Cats, both dead and alive, make > memorable appearances, and one medicated cat performs somersaults. An > elephant vanishes, and a motley crew of creatures mount a scientific > expedition. In fact, animals densely populate his shorter sketches and > newspaper work, and they are found in nearly every one of his longer > writings and story collections: _The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras > County_ (1867), _The Innocents Abroad_ (1869), _Roughing It_ (1872), > _Sketches New and Old_ (1875), _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ (1876), _A > Tramp Abroad_ (1880), _The Stolen White Elephant_ (1882), _Life on the > Mississippi_ (1883), _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ (1885), _A > Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ (1889), _Tom Sawyer Abroad_ > (1894), _Pudd'nhead Wilson_ (1894), _Tom Sawyer Detective_ (1896), > _Following the Equator_ (1897), _A Dog's Tale_ (1903), _What Is Man?_ > (1906), _A Horse's Tale_ (1907), _The Mysterious Stranger_ (1916, 1963, > 1968), and _Mark Twain's Autobiography_ (1924, 2010, 2013, 2015). > > > Animals figure prominently in Mark Twain's personal life as well. He > frequently appears in photographs with both dogs and cats--more often with > cats--and he once sat with a fake cat curled in his lap. He was surrounded > by cats in his youth and his old age, but it was a dog that was in his room > in his last days. Some of his Langdon relatives were very nearly killed > before his eyes when their carriage was carried away by a runaway horse, > and his daughter Jean narrowly escaped death when the horse she was riding > was struck and killed by a street-car. He welcomed most animals that came > his way, but a snake that slithered into the library of his Hartford home > was promptly tossed out a window with fireplace tongs. > > > Twainians will fondly recall Robert M. Rodney and Minnie M. Brashear's _The > Birds and Beasts of Mark Twain_ (1966), Janet Smith's _Mark Twain on Man > and Beast_ (1972), Maxwell Geismer's _The Higher Animals, A Mark Twain > Bestiary_ (1976) and Shelley Fisher Fishkin's more recent _Mark Twain's > Book of Animals_ (2010). These artfully illustrated volumes document Mark > Twain's depictions of the animals already mentioned above, as well as > bears, chameleons, mules, turkeys, buffaloes, cows, assorted insects, > monkeys, kangaroos, camels, coyotes, and fish. And that's not all! Who > among us can forget, far off in the empty sky, the solitary oesophagus that > slept upon motionless wing? > > > But these other animals don't rank as high in Mark Twain's estimation as > cats and dogs. The human race may have been damned, but not cats and dogs. > Twain's daughter Susy famously said her mother loved morals, but her father > loved cats, and she was right. No matter where he lived he always had cats > in his life. While the same cannot be said for Twain's relationship with > dogs, he wrote an entire book about a dog--not a cat, and he wrote to his > friend William Dean Howells that he hoped to go to dog's heaven, not man's. > > > So it seems inevitable that well-known Mark Twain scholars Mark Dawidziak > and Kent Rasmussen would come along, and it's suddenly Twaining cats and > dogs: Abner, Agnes, Bismark, Bummer, Catullus, Cataline, Cattaraugus, > Catasauqua, Motley, Stray Kit, Fraulein, Lazy, Buffalo Bill, Soapy Sal, > Prosper le Gai, Cleveland, Fix, Peter, Sin, Satan, Famine, Pestilence, Sour > Mash, Tom Quartz, Appollinaris, Zoroaster, Blatherskite, Lazarus, Babylon, > Bones, Belchazar, Elihu Vedder, Genesis, Deuteronomy, Germania, Bambino, > Andrew Jackson, Ananda, Annanci, Socrates Goldenrod Slee, Jo Cook, > Sackcloth, Sackcloth, Ashes, Tammany, Sinbad, Danbury, Billiards, Aileen > Mavourneen, Mark Twain and Mark Twain. The listings of two Sackcloths and > two Twains are not typos. This cloudburst of cats and dogs is not a > complete list, but most of these dogs and cats appear in the two volumes > just published. If you want to test your Twainian credentials, identify > which of these are dogs and which are cats, and then read these books to > check your answers. > > > Dawidziak collects together forty stories and extracts from Twain's > writings about cats, and Rasmussen has gathered forty-six about dogs. The > pieces selected range from entire stories to short extracts from a variety > of sources that include well-known newspapers, obscure newspapers, Twain's > correspondence, Twain's own memoirs, and other memoirs by his longtime > housekeeper Kate Leary, his lecture agent James B. Pond, and his daughter > Clara. Each story is sourced, and all are introduced with informed and > light-hearted prefatory notes. Rather than original art work like the > Geismer and Fishkin volumes, these two little tomes are generously > illustrated with original photographs of Mark Twain posing and playing with > dogs and cats, and illustrations from early editions of Twain's writings, > as well as some from other contemporary sources. Both volumes are designed > to appeal to general readers and serious Twainians alike. > > > Readers will find these books hard to put down once they browse the > contents pages. The cat stories are grouped into six categories:=C2=A0 > "Cat= > s Who > Eat Cocoanuts, Smoke Cigars, and Get Blown Up"; "No Home Complete Without a > Cat"; "Give Me a Cat"; "What Is [sic] Dead Cats Good For?"; "Lions and > Tigers and Twain"; and, "No Ordinary Cats." The dog stories are likewise > divided dogmatically into six sections: "Mark Twain in the Company of > Dogs"; "Uncommon Canines"; "Put-Upon Pooches"; "Party Animals"; "Dogs With > Foreign Accents"; and "Lessons We Can Learn from Dogs." The books are > equally enjoyable whether the pieces are read in order or at random, and > along the way every reader will learn something new. > > > Every Twainian will see the familiar expected episodes--the dog that > disrupts the church service, the cat that swallows painkiller, the fatal > encounter of fifteen dogs with a Good Little Boy, the cat in the ruff--but > no Twainian will be familiar with all of them. There will be some > surprises--an obituary for a famous San Francisco dog, an entomologist who > identifies the species of beetle that pinches the nose of the dog that > disrupts the church service (and names a beetle after Twain--Sonoma > twaini), some cats who fall asleep on command, and how Twain uses a cat to > argue against Shakespeare's authorship of the plays that bear his name. > Readers can enjoy Twain's canine description that inspired Chuck Jones to > create his famous Roadrunner cartoons, and mourn the violent death of a > handsome cat that Twain dubbed the "mascat" of the Aquarium, his club for > his surrogate grand-daughters, the angelfish. This list could be extended, > but only at the risk of teasers morphing into spoilers. > > > Some avid readers will dog-ear these books. Librarians will catalogue them. > Some will buy them as gifts for their cater-cousins. Some will be > catapulted to new heights by reading them right away, while others may hold > off for the dog-days of summer. But get to your nearest bookshop any way > you might--by dogcart or by catamaran--and obtain these books. It would be > a dog-gone catastrophe not to. I daresay, only somebody dog-tired or > catatonic, or perhaps just resting on a catafalque, could do without them. > > > =20 >