| Pennsylvania Deer and Their Horns Contributor(s): Shoemaker, Henry W. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0271022655 ISBN-13: 9780271022659 Publisher: Penn State University Press OUR PRICE: $15.79 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2007 Annotation: The Penn State University Press is pleased to introduce Metalmark Books, a joint imprint of the Press and the University Libraries at Penn State. Books published under this imprint are selected from the collections of the University Libraries. They may be viewed online or ordered as print-on-demand paperbacks. Initially, books published under the Metalmark imprint will be chosen from the Libraries extensive Pennsylvania holdings. Over time, the scope will broaden to include other significant out-of-print titles. These five Metalmark reprints preserve and make available once again some of the early writing of folklorist Henry W. Shomaker. He authored hundreds of pamphlets and books on nature, history, and folklore. He was publisher of several influential newspapers in Pennsylvania, including the Altoona Tribune and the Reading Eagle. He became the first state folklorist in America, one of the first chairs of the Pennsylvania Historical Commission, and an influential member of the State Forest Commission and the State Geographic Board. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Collections - True Crime | Espionage - Nature | Animals - Mammals |
| Dewey: 327.127 |
| Series: Metalmark |
| Physical Information: 0.5" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (0.63 lbs) 164 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Pennsylvania Deer and Their Horns, published in 1915, stands alongside a number of Shoemaker's volumes, such as Wolf Days in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Lion or Panther, dedicated to telling the tales of vanishing or extinct Pennsylvania wildlife. Pennsylvania Deer and Their Horns places these tales within the greater context of the Pennsylvania sportsmen's and hunting culture. While lamenting the extinction of the old-stock Pennsylvania deer species, Shoemaker celebrates the hunter and the sport and writes in a hopeful spirit that the sport will continue without causing extinction. Shoemaker writes that the book is meant to "establish a standard of comparison of old and new deer and their horns . . . by presenting descriptions and measurements of the best known heads of moose, elk and deer killed in the commonwealth, an added zest will be given to efforts of collectors and hunters." In the chapters that follow, the author describes and compares fossil and extinct Pennsylvania deer, big deer, little deer, the gray moose or elk, and black moose. Descriptions of famous hunters, hunting methods, and traditions appear alongside hunting lore and tales of legendary stags and their famous pursuers. The volume concludes with three chapters on deer, elk, and moose horns, with descriptions and measurements of antlers, along with stories of unusual and "freak" heads and sets of antlers. The text is heavily illustrated with photographs of famous hunters and their game, alongside many photographs of the deer and horns themselves. |
Contributor Bio(s): Shoemaker, Henry W.: - Henry W. Shoemaker (1880-1958) was the author of more than twenty volumes of popular Pennsylvania literary folklore and numerous narrative volumes about Pennsylvania's disappearing wildlife during the first half of the twentieth century. He also served as Pennsylvania's first state folklorist from 1948 to 1956. |