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

In Mark Twain for Horse Lovers, author R. Kent Rasmussen offers a collection of Mark Twain’s best writings about horses, donkeys, and mules, along with some first-hand observations of him and the animals recorded by people who knew him well.

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. He clearly was fascinated with them, and he probably wrote more about them than he did about either cats or dogs. In this book the author offers a collection of Mark Twain’s best writings about horses, donkeys, and mules, along with some first-hand observations of him and the animals recorded by people who knew him well, such as his daughter Clara. Organized chronologically from his early trips out west to his visits to Europe and Middle East in his later years, the book also includes stories of horses drawn purely from his imagination, including the short novel A Horse’s Tale. Other equine vignettes are drawn from such Twain’s classics as “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and more.