Hilaire Belloc's Collection

This book contain collection of 69 Short Stories:
Introduction The Yak The Polar Bear The Lion The Tiger The Dromedary The Whale The Camel The Hippopotamus The Dodo The Marmozet The Camelopard The Learned Fish The Elephant The Big Baboon The Rhinoceros The Frog Introduction The Python The Welsh Mutton The Porcupine The Scorpion The Crocodile The Vulture The Bison The Viper The Llama The Chamois The Frozen Mammoth The Microbe A for Archibald B for Bear C for Cobra D for Dreadful E for Egg F for Family G for Gnu H for Horseman I for Indian J for James K for Klondyke L for Lady M for Millionaire N for Ned O for Oxford P for Pig Q for Quinine R for Reviewer S for Snail T for Tourist U for Upas Tree V for Volunteer W for Waterbeetle X for Nothing Important Y for Youth Z for Zebu Introduction Jim Henry King Matilda Franklin Hyde Godolphin Horne Algernon Hildebrand Lord Lundy Lord Lundy (cont.) Rebecca George Charles Augustus Fortescue
About the Author:

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist. He is most notable for his Catholic faith, which had a strong impact on most of his works and his writing collaboration with G. K. Chesterton. He was President of the Oxford Union and later MP for Salford from 1906 to 1910. He was a noted disputant, with a number of long-running feuds, but also widely regarded as a humane and sympathetic man.

His most lasting legacy is probably his verse, which encompasses cautionary tales and religious poetry. Among his best-remembered poems are Jim, who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion and Matilda, who told lies and was burnt to death.

Cautionary Tales for Children; humorous poems with an implausible moral, beautifully illustrated by Basil Temple Blackwood (signing as "B.T.B.") and later by Edward Gorey, are the most widely known of his writings. Supposedly for children, they, like Lewis Carroll's works, are more to adult and satirical tastes: Henry King, Who chewed bits of string and was early cut off in dreadful agonies. A similar poem tells the story of Rebecca, who slammed doors for fun and perished miserably.