Margaret Marshall Saunders (1861 - 1947) was a
Canadian writer and social activist.
Keridiana Chez is Assistant Professor of English
at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York, USA.
"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
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
