A Horse's Tale

Top

Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia

A Horse's Tale
First edition book cover
Author(s)	Mark Twain
Illustrator	Lucius Wolcott Hitchcock
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Harper & Brothers
Publication date	1907
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	153^[1]
ISBN	NA
OCLC Number	262628
Preceded by	Christian Science (essay)
Followed by	Is Shakespeare Dead?

A Horse's Tale is a novel by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), written partially in the voice of Soldier Boy, who is Buffalo Bill's favorite horse, at a fictional frontier outpost with the U.S. 7th Cavalry.

Background

Harper's Magazine originally published the story in two installments in August and September 1906.^[2] Clemens wrote the story after receiving a request from actress Minnie Maddern Fiske to assist in her drive against bullfighting.^[2] Harper's published the story as a 153-page book in October 1907.^[2]

Clemen's daughter Susy Clemens, who died in 1896 at age 24 of spinal meningitis, is understood to be inspiration for lead character Cathy Alison.^[2]^[3] When Clemens provided the story to Harper's, he included a photograph of Susy for the illustrator to use for Cathy.^[2]

References

^ Facsimile of the first edition
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Rasmussen, R. Kent. Critical Companion to Mark Twain: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, p. 169-74 (Facts On File, 2d ed. 2007) (ISBN 978-0816053988)
^ (21 April 2010). Mark Twain manuscript reveals author's pain at losing his daughter, The Guardian

External links

A Horse's Tale at Project Gutenberg

v d e Works by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Novels	The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer • The Prince and the Pauper • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court • The American Claimant • Tom Sawyer Abroad • Pudd'nhead Wilson • Tom Sawyer, Detective • Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc • A Double Barrelled Detective Story • A Horse's Tale • A Dog's Tale • The Mysterious Stranger

Short stories	"General Washington's Negro Body-Servant" • "My Late Senatorial Secretaryship" • "Advice to Little Girls" • "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" • "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" • "The War Prayer" • "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" • "A Literary Nightmare" • "Luck" • "The Stolen White Elephant" • "1601: Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors" • A Dog's Tale • "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage"

Short story collections	The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County • Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance • Sketches New and Old • A True Story and the Recent Carnival of Crime • Punch, Brothers, Punch! and Other Sketches • Merry Tales • The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories • The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Letters from the Earth • The Library of Humor •

Plays	Is He Dead?

Essays	Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany • How to Tell a Story and Other Essays • Christian Science • Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses • The Awful German Language

Non-fiction	The Innocents Abroad • Memoranda (monthly column) • Roughing It • Old Times on the Mississippi • A Tramp Abroad • Life on the Mississippi • Following the Equator • What Is Man? • Is Shakespeare Dead? • Queen Victoria's Jubilee • Autobiography of Mark Twain • Mark Twain's Notebook • King Leopold's Soliloquy • The Private History of a Campaign That Failed • Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War • The Bible According to Mark Twain: Writings on Heaven, Eden, and the Flood