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Copper Khan
1950. First Edition. 232 pages. Pictorial dust jacket over pictorial cloth covered boards. Black and white illustrations by Wesley Dennis. Pages with some foxing and tanning, particularly to endpapers and textblock edges. Binding slightly loose. Boards have mild shelf wear with light rubbing and corner bumping. Some moderate marking and tanning. Unclipped jacket has moderate to heavy edge wear with tears, chips, and some areas of loss. Noticeable rubbing and marking.
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July 20, 2025
I've read a half-dozen or so books by Dorothy Lyons in my life, mainly because the late, great Wesley Dennis illustrated most of her books. The stories themselves were pretty bad. I found this on the Internet Archive and thought, "This couldn't be as bad as the other books, could it?"
No, it wasn't as bad. It was worse. This is, hands down, the worst Dorothy Lyons book I've ever been stupid enough to read.
This is the final book in the Connemera McGuire series, which started with Silver Birch. Like most other authors, she couldn't resist milking a series one time too many. She should've stopped with Golden Soverign, when it was clear that all of Connemera McGuire's dreams had come true.
Come to think of it, Dorothy Lyons should've stopped before she wrote the first fucking word of Silver Birch, and freed Wesley Dennis to illustrate books by better authors.
Oh my -- where to begin describing how bad this was? How about the stereotypes of the Irish and Romany gypsies? Nice bit of 1950s racism, there.
Or how about Connemera's lack of love for Copper Khan? He's really just a pet project to her, and then he becomes the farm's cash cow.
Her farm has at least 12 horses now, including young horses that need training. Do they get any? Nope. All of the other horses are ignored -- some of the young ones don't even have names yet -- and it's left to Connie's father to care for the horses AND the farm while she's gallavanting off to the races.
There is mention of a Thoroughbred racetrack in Michigan, although this track is never named. I'd never heard of a Thoroughbred track in Michigan, although I knew it had a harness racing track. A quick Google check confirms that in 1950, at the time this was published, there were TWO tracks in Michigan, now long shut down.
And then there is the whole thing of intensely racing a two-year-old who has recovered from a broken leg. How brain-dead is that? Yeah, before the late 1970s, most racehorses ran every week -- sometimes twice a week. Instead of working horses out, they were raced, instead. But they weren't recovering from broken legs.
There are problems the Khan Crew run into that would never happen at a track -- even in 1950. I'll have a coronary if I start going deeply into the stupid here, so I'll just stop.
Point is -- this book sucked, but Wesley Dennis' illustrations rocked. Just look at the drawings and ignore the text.
No, it wasn't as bad. It was worse. This is, hands down, the worst Dorothy Lyons book I've ever been stupid enough to read.
This is the final book in the Connemera McGuire series, which started with Silver Birch. Like most other authors, she couldn't resist milking a series one time too many. She should've stopped with Golden Soverign, when it was clear that all of Connemera McGuire's dreams had come true.
Come to think of it, Dorothy Lyons should've stopped before she wrote the first fucking word of Silver Birch, and freed Wesley Dennis to illustrate books by better authors.
Oh my -- where to begin describing how bad this was? How about the stereotypes of the Irish and Romany gypsies? Nice bit of 1950s racism, there.
Or how about Connemera's lack of love for Copper Khan? He's really just a pet project to her, and then he becomes the farm's cash cow.
Her farm has at least 12 horses now, including young horses that need training. Do they get any? Nope. All of the other horses are ignored -- some of the young ones don't even have names yet -- and it's left to Connie's father to care for the horses AND the farm while she's gallavanting off to the races.
There is mention of a Thoroughbred racetrack in Michigan, although this track is never named. I'd never heard of a Thoroughbred track in Michigan, although I knew it had a harness racing track. A quick Google check confirms that in 1950, at the time this was published, there were TWO tracks in Michigan, now long shut down.
And then there is the whole thing of intensely racing a two-year-old who has recovered from a broken leg. How brain-dead is that? Yeah, before the late 1970s, most racehorses ran every week -- sometimes twice a week. Instead of working horses out, they were raced, instead. But they weren't recovering from broken legs.
There are problems the Khan Crew run into that would never happen at a track -- even in 1950. I'll have a coronary if I start going deeply into the stupid here, so I'll just stop.
Point is -- this book sucked, but Wesley Dennis' illustrations rocked. Just look at the drawings and ignore the text.
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