Mark Twain for Horse Lovers: True and Imaginary Adventures with Horses and Their Kin [Hardcover]

Mark Twain’s affection for cats is well-known, and no one would be surprised to hear he also liked dogs. Less well known, however, is his admiration for horses and their kin, donkeys and mules. Clearly fascinated with them, he wrote more about Equine animals than he did about either cats or dogs combined. This book offers a collection of Mark Twain’s funniest and most compelling writings about equine animals. Organized chronologically within categories such as “Uneasy Rider,” “Sorry Steeds,” and “Eccentric Equines,” the textual selections cover his early trips out west, his travels to Europe and Middle East, and his later years. The book also includes horse stories drawn purely from his imagination, including the short novellaA Horse’s Tale. Other equine vignettes are drawn from such Twain’s classics as “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,”Huckleberry Finn, andA Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.R. Kent Rasmussenis the holder of a UCLA doctorate in history and a retired reference-book editor. He has long been recognized as a leading world authority on Mark Twain, about whom he has published fourteen books. Those volumes include such now-standard reference works asMark Twain A toZ; its expanded revision,Critical Companion to Mark Twain; andThe Quotable Mark Twain.Books that he has edited include four volumes of critical essays; several collections of Mark Twain’s own writings, including the Penguin Classics edition ofAutobiographical Writings,Mark Twain for Dog Lovers, andMark Twain’s Tales of the Macabre & Mysterious—the latter two both Lyons Press publication. He lives in Thousand Oaks, California and is now working on his sixteenth Mark Twain book.CONTENTS

Introduction

Note on Texts

PART I: Uneasy Rider
1. Saddle Up!
2.l“%