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There are two kinds of literature with animals as main characters. The first is fantastic stories with talking animals such as Watership Down, the Freddy the Pig books, Rabbit Hill, Ben and Me, and the Dr. Dolittle series. The second category consists of stories where an animal or animals are principal characters but act according to their nature. Examples include Follow My Leader, Big Red and practically all the other Jim Kjelgaard books, the Black Stallion series, The Incredible Journey, and the book that is reviewed below, Lassie Come Home, by Eric Knight.
Eric Knight (1897-1943) was born in Yorkshire, England, where the book is set, and always loved dogs. He eventually lived in America and worked as a newspaper journalist, a screenwriter for movies, and a short story and novel writer. He served in World War I and died in a plane crash while serving in World War II. The character of Lassie, the beautiful and intelligent collie that so many American TV shows and movies featured over the last seventy years, comes directly from Eric Knight’s book, which became a bestseller.
In the 1940 novel, which was an expansion of the author’s original story in the Saturday Evening Post, Lassie is a collie dog that her owner is forced to sell because of his poverty. Her new owner takes her hundreds of miles north into the Scottish Highlands. Her old owner, Joe Carraclough, never expects to see her again. But, like in The Incredible Journey, which was written (1961) well after Lassie Comes Home, Lassie finds her way back down south, unerringly homing in on her beloved Joe. This is a lovely, well-told story – I liked it a lot and I am not a dog person!