The Still Hunter

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1904 Edition.

The Still Hunter is a classic guide to hunting deer in rugged terrain - dating to the late-19th century, many of this book's lessons remain valuable, relevant and highly useful to this day. A book long appreciated by hunting enthusiasts all over the world, The Still Hunter was the first book of its kind: offering detailed guidance and step-by-step instruction in a manner both lucid and demonstrative, at the time it appeared in 1882 deer hunting was a practice shrouded in mystique. Theodore Van Dyke was a hunter of long experience; his words are straightforward, with the practicalities of killing game given without embellishment. We are told in detail how to spot deer and track them through the wilderness. The methods deer use to blend into, and hide among, foliage and scenery are detailed, as are their typical movements through the rugged terrain they typically populate. Van Dyke tells of how to effectively pursue deer, and how stealth is crucial particularly as the hunter prepares to take a shot.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Theodore Roosevelt, T. S. Van Dyke, and other elite men began describing their big-game hunting as “manly sport with the rifle.” They also began writing about their experiences, publishing hundreds of narratives of hunting and adventure in the popular press (and creating a new literary genre in the process). But why did so many of these big-game hunters publish? What was writing actually doing for them, and what did it do for readers? In exploring these questions, The Hunter Elite reveals new connections among hunting narratives, publishing, and the American conservation movement. Beginning in the 1880s these prolific hunter-writers told readers that big-game hunting was a test of self-restraint and “manly virtues,” and that it was not about violence. They also opposed their sportsmanlike hunting to the slaughtering of game by British imperialists, even as they hunted across North America and throughout the British Empire. Their references to Americanism and manliness appealed to traditional values, but they used very modern publishing technologies to sell their stories, and by 1900 they were reaching hundreds of thousands of readers every month. When hunter-writers took up conservation as a cause, they used that reach to rally popular support for the national parks and for legislation that restricted hunting in the US, Canada, and Newfoundland. The Hunter Elite is the first book to explore both the international nature of American hunting during this period and the essential contributions of hunting narratives and the publishing industry to the North American conservation movement.

A favorite book of President Theodore Roosevelt that inspired his hunting during his time in the badlands of North Dakota. "That mystic tie, which binds in one circle of enchantment all the varied scenes in which the rifle, rod, or gun play a part, must make the subject of this work of some interest to every lover of the field, whether he uses the rifle or not, and whether he ever expects to hunt large game or not. I have therefore endeavored to treat it in such a manner as to be at least readable to all such, as well as interesting to those who desire the information it contains. The part on rifles and rifle-shooting and on game may be interesting to all who love the sporting rifle. And, judging from the comments and letters in the leading papers upon fieldsports at the time when I first wrote upon the use of the rifle in the field, even the experienced hunter may find a hint or two that may one day serve him." -Theodore Van Dyke

Over two million American women hunt. By taking up weapons for the explicit purpose of killing, they are shattering one of Western culture's oldest and most firmly entrenched taboos. The image of a woman 'armed and dangerous' is profoundly threatening to our collective psyche--and it is rejected by macho males and radical feminists alike. Woman the Hunter juxtaposes unsettlingly beautiful accounts of the author's own experiences hunting deer, antelope, and elk with an argument that builds on the work of thinkers from Aldo Leopold to Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Exploring how women and men relate to nature and violence, Mary Zeiss Stange demonstrates how false assumptions about women and about hunting permeate contemporary thought. Her book is a profound critique of our society's evasion of issues that make us uncomfortable, and it culminates in a surprising claim: that only by appreciating the value of hunting can we come to understand what it means to be human. Controversial and original, defying easy stereotypes,Woman the Hunter is sure to provoke strong reactions in almost every reader.