Beautiful Joe - Softcover

Saunders, Marshall

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1494873745 ISBN 13: 9781494873745

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

Published in 1893, Beautiful Joe was the first Canadian book to sell a million copies and was extremely popular in America, too (selling almost a million copies by 1900). A work of fiction told from the dog's point of view, it is based upon the true story of an abused dog (in the tradition of 1877's Black Beauty). It reflects many of the unfortunate realities of society in those days, but it had an incredible impact upon the Western world's ideas about humane treatment of animals. Interestingly, it is still published with the author listed as Marshall Saunders. In fact, it was written by Margaret Marshall Saunders, and published using her middle name since it was felt that no one would want to buy a book written by a woman. (She was in fact the first woman to write a book which sold a million copies!) Every animal shelter and rescue organization in America and Canada owes a debt to Beautiful Joe.

About this title

Review:

“Marshall Saunders begins the Introduction to Beautiful Joe: ‘THE wonderfully successful book, entitled “Black Beauty,” came like a living voice out of the animal kingdom.’ Keridiana Chez’s superb edition of Saunders’s great novel has recalled another vibrant animal voice: the dog Beautiful Joe’s in his ‘Autobiography.’ Chez not only restores the original 1894 edition—more politically contentious than its many sanitized twentieth-century successors—but she also provides a splendidly thorough introduction and evocative cultural contexts, from the temperance and anti-vivisectionist movements to the childhood humane education groups known as the Bands of Mercy. Now at last there is a definitive edition of Beautiful Joe. I anticipate teaching it with great pleasure in my autumn ‘Victorian Animal Dreams’ course, right alongside Black Beauty, where the ‘living voice’ of the mutilated, loving dog and the ill-used, faithful horse will indeed be beautiful.” --Deborah Denenholz Morse, co-editor of Victorian Animal Dreams
“At long last, the novel that haunts the history of humane education is back in print, and in a scholarly edition that restores the cringe-worthy details that indicate how a story of animal torture became Canada’s first bestseller. With well-organized appendixes of carefully selected, contemporaneous ephemera, this edition is guaranteed to spark lively discussions among scholars and students alike. Situating Margaret Marshall Saunders’s fiction amid debates about animal protection, petkeeping, vivisection, prohibition, and publication, Chez’s comprehensive introduction further helps to set new terms of debate by making the case for the relevance of the novel’s ‘demand[ . . . for . . .] strong ethical response – and action’ – to contemporary animal studies scholarship.”

--Susan McHugh, University of New England

About the Author:

Margaret Marshall Saunders (1861–1947) was a Canadian author. Saunders was born in the village of Milton, Nova Scotia, though she spent most of her childhood in Berwick, Nova Scotia where her father was a Baptist minister. Saunders is most famous for her novel Beautiful Joe. It tells the true story of dog that has had a difficult puppyhood with many obstacles including a cruel owner. It is told from the dog's point of view. When the book was published in 1893, both the book and its subject received worldwide attention. It was the first Canadian book to sell over a million copies, and by the late 1930s had sold over seven million copies worldwide. In 1934, Saunders was made a Commander of the British Empire (C.B.E.), at the time her country's highest civilian honor. Together with fellow Canadian author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Saunders co-founded the Maritime branch of the Canadian Women's Press Club. Following the success of Beautiful Joe, Saunders wrote more than twenty other stories, a number of which provided social commentary on such things as the abolition of child labor, slum clearance, and the improvement of playground facilities. Saunders died in 1947 in Toronto, Ontario where she had lived for a number of years.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1494873745
• ISBN 13: 9781494873745
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 188