Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction
As defined by conservation biologist Thomas Fleishner, natural history is “a practice of intentional, focused receptivity to the more-than-human world . . . one of the oldest continuous human traditions.” Seldom is this idea so clearly reflected as in classic works of American fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

John Cullen Gruesser’s edited volume Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction features essays by prominent literary scholars that showcase natural history and the multifaceted role of animals in well-known works of fiction, from Washington Irving in the early nineteenth century to Cormac McCarthy in the late twentieth century, and including short stories and novels by Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, John Steinbeck, and Harper Lee.

As an introduction to or a new way of thinking about some of the best-known and most beloved literary texts this nation has produced, Animals in the American Classics considers fundamental questions of ethics and animal intelligence as well as similarities among racism, ageism, misogyny, and speciesism.  

With their awareness of Poe’s “more-than-casual knowledge of natural science,” Mark Twain’s proto–animal rights sensibilities, and Hurston’s training as an anthropologist, the contributors show that by drawing attention to and thinking like an animal, fiction tests the limits of humanity.

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Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction
As defined by conservation biologist Thomas Fleishner, natural history is “a practice of intentional, focused receptivity to the more-than-human world . . . one of the oldest continuous human traditions.” Seldom is this idea so clearly reflected as in classic works of American fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

John Cullen Gruesser’s edited volume Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction features essays by prominent literary scholars that showcase natural history and the multifaceted role of animals in well-known works of fiction, from Washington Irving in the early nineteenth century to Cormac McCarthy in the late twentieth century, and including short stories and novels by Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, John Steinbeck, and Harper Lee.

As an introduction to or a new way of thinking about some of the best-known and most beloved literary texts this nation has produced, Animals in the American Classics considers fundamental questions of ethics and animal intelligence as well as similarities among racism, ageism, misogyny, and speciesism.  

With their awareness of Poe’s “more-than-casual knowledge of natural science,” Mark Twain’s proto–animal rights sensibilities, and Hurston’s training as an anthropologist, the contributors show that by drawing attention to and thinking like an animal, fiction tests the limits of humanity.

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Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction

Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction

Overview

As defined by conservation biologist Thomas Fleishner, natural history is “a practice of intentional, focused receptivity to the more-than-human world . . . one of the oldest continuous human traditions.” Seldom is this idea so clearly reflected as in classic works of American fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

John Cullen Gruesser’s edited volume Animals in the American Classics: How Natural History Inspired Great Fiction features essays by prominent literary scholars that showcase natural history and the multifaceted role of animals in well-known works of fiction, from Washington Irving in the early nineteenth century to Cormac McCarthy in the late twentieth century, and including short stories and novels by Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, John Steinbeck, and Harper Lee.

As an introduction to or a new way of thinking about some of the best-known and most beloved literary texts this nation has produced, Animals in the American Classics considers fundamental questions of ethics and animal intelligence as well as similarities among racism, ageism, misogyny, and speciesism.  

With their awareness of Poe’s “more-than-casual knowledge of natural science,” Mark Twain’s proto–animal rights sensibilities, and Hurston’s training as an anthropologist, the contributors show that by drawing attention to and thinking like an animal, fiction tests the limits of humanity.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781648430206
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Publication date: 10/11/2022
Series: Integrative Natural History Series, sponsored by the Museum of Natural History Collections, Sam Houston State University
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

JOHN CULLEN GRUESSER is senior research scholar of literary studies at Sam Houston State University. He is the author of numerous books, including Edgar Allan Poe and His Nineteenth-Century American Counterparts and A Literary Life of Sutton E. Griggs The Man on the Firing Line, and coeditor, of the Broadview Edition of Pauline E. Hopkins’s novel Hagar’s Daughter.

Table of Contents

Foreword William I. Lutterschmidt ix

Acknowledgments xi

1 Animal Analogues and the Character of American Wildlife in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" William E. Engel 1

2 "At the same time more and less than a man": The Ourang-Outang in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" Philip Edward Phillips 31

3 Insects, Metamorphosis, and Poe's "The Gold-Bug" Susan Elizabeth Sweeney 57

4 Whales, Mother Carey's Chickens, and a Heart-Stricken Moose in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick Brian Yothers 88

5 Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog": Cartoon Fantasy and Grim Reality in the Animal Kingdom John Bird 111

6 Learning to Think like an Animal: Pragmatism in Jack London's The Call of the Wild Anthony Reynolds 133

7 A "Background Never Stated": Mice, Snakes, Dogs, and Rabbits in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men Barbara A. Heavilin 161

8 High Water and the Limits of Humanity in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God Cherene Sherrard-Johnson 178

9 Faulkner's Animals: Testing the Limits of the Human Deborah Clarke 199

10 A Natural History of the Blue Marlin in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea Susan F. Beegel 216

11 Mad Dogs and Maycomb: Harper Lee's Guide to an Ambiguous South in To Kill a Mockingbird Robert Donahoo 240

12 Gatelamps to Another World: Seeing the Animal in Cormac McCarthy Stagey Peebles 265

Notes on the Contributors 289

Index 293

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