The Horse Lovers' Treasury

by Genevieve Murphy (Editor)

illustrated collection of prose and poetry from SHAKESPEARE, LONGFELLOW AND DYLAN THOMAS

Genres: Animals

320 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1963

Reviews

[Rena Sherwood]

DNF p. 56

Once upon a time, kids, there used to be record albums, usually put out by K-Tel, that advertised on TV, and you'd have to send a check off by snail mail, wait 4 - 6 weeks, and get your 2 album set of 50 Greatest Classical Hits. 50 classical pieces of music! How'd they get it to fit on just 2 albums?

By only sampling about a minute from each selection. "The Hallelujah Chorus" was HAAAAAALLLLAAAAYYYUUUUYAAAAAAH and that was about it. The only musical piece you got to hear in its entirety was "The Flight of the Bumblebee."

This anthology is exactly like those rip-off records. It has hundreds of selections divided into 15 parts for its 340 or so pages. As you can see from the partial list below, the author's name was often longer than the excerpted material. If you can survive reading the partial list below, pat yourself on the back and think how much worse reading the actual book would've been.

Selections:

* "Preface" by Our Editor.

Part I: The Horseman's Fantasy

* "The Hoofs of the Horses" by Will H. Ogilvie. For a rhymed poem, it's not bad.
* "A Mental Picture" by William Shakespeare. From Henry V. Calm down -- it's just a mere two lines here.
* "A Tall Tale" by Rudolph Erich Raspe. From The Travels of Baron Munchausen. Never invite Baron Munchausen to tea when you're to to get a new horse.
* "Horses in the Bedroom" by Dylan Thomas. From Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. Grandfather's imaginary friends are horses.
* "Dick Christian" by R. E. Egartom Warburton. Portrait of a rider as a young toff.
* "The Winged Horse Pegasus" by George Baker. From The Realms of Gold. A very gentle one-page reworking of Pegasus and the Chimera.
* "Some Old Friends" by Jonathan Swift. From Gulliver's Travels. Two sentences.
* "White Horses" by John Covernton. Very good poem about watching the waves on a Libiyan beach.
* "Daydreams" by Christine Pullein-Thompson. From The Horse Sale. Rather bizarre snippet from the popular UK kid's book.
* "Pegasus in Pound" by H. W. Longfellow. Poem about Pegasus showing up in Longfellow's England -- and being captured to be sold to the highest bidder.

Part II: It Takes All Kinds

* "The First of All the Horses" by R. H. Summerhayes. From The Young Rider's Guide to the Horse World. Rather breathless two-page summary about the evolution of horses.
* "Near and Far" by Dorothy Wellesley. Page long extract from her longer poem "Horses."
* "His Mystery" by Lt. Col. C. E. G. Hope. From Pony. A beautiful one paragraph portrait of the Arabian horse.
* "And Courage" by Lady Anne Blunt. From Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates. Lady Blunt, the leading Arabian horse breeder in England, writes nonsense about apparently stone-deaf Arabians.
* "Old" by W. F. Holmes. For some reason, Our Editor retitled a sentimental poem called "The Old Brown Horse".
* "And Young" by Frank Kendon. Forgettable excerpt from the poem "Mares and Foals."
* "Large" by Will H. Ogilvie. Way too chipper excerpt from the poem "Clydesdales".
* "And Small" by Betty Stoneham. Way too sentimental excerpt from poem "Ode to a Shetland Pony."
* "The Bucking Bronco" by Will James. This short story (NOT an excerpt) was originally published under the title "For a Horse".
* "Sometimes" by Shelia L. Mills. Back to the excerpts -- this time from the cute poem "Pony."
* "One for the Record" by R. A. Summerhayes. From Summerhayes' Encyclopeadia for Horsemen. One sentence about the supposed oldest horse who ever lived.
* "A Mixed Bunch" by George Borrow. From Lavengro. A few sentences about a visit to a UK horse fair.
* "At the Plough" by Richard Henry Horne. We close out this seemingly eternal section with a complete poem about nothing much.

Part III: The Art of Riding

* "Better to ride on an ass ..." One of those proverbs that makes you want to punch somebody.
* "Six Lines" by William Shakespeare. From Hamlet. Praise for a rider.
* "The Aids Explained" by Lt.-Col. C. E. G. Hope. From Pony Horselovers' Diary. Not a very good definition.
* "The Aids Explained" by John Tickner. From Tickner's Horse Encyclopaedia. Meant to be a parody, but more accurate a definition.
* Another damn proverb.
* "How Do You Ride?" By G. J. Whyte-Melville. From Riding Recollections. Not much to recall here in this tedious paragraph.
* "Getting On" by William Shakespeare. Four lines about a good rider from Henry IV.
* "But first with nimble active force" by Samuel Butler. From the poem "Hudibras."
* "And Off" by R. S. Surtees. From Handley Cross. ONE LINE spoken by Jorrocks, the mostly incomprehensible Cockney beloved of English editors of horse anthologies.
* And a third proverb, this time from Mexico.
* "Recipie for a Good Rider" by Leslie M. Oyler. From either a book or poem called Pony.
* "A Soft Landing" by G. J. Whyte-Melville. Oh, this guy again, this time talking about a mechanical bucking horse ride.

And that's where I gave up, because life is too short.