BEAUTIFUL JOE originated from the same era and sensibilities as the more famous BLACK BEAUTY. Like the world’s best-known horse novel, BEAUTIFUL JOE tells a story from the perspective of an animal (this time a dog), with the intent of instilling humane values in its readers. Unlike BLACK BEAUTY, however, JOE is not a classic in writing style, and reads more like a morality play—attempting to cram as many lessons as possible into the text—than an actual story that will hold readers’ attention. Many of the tenants of our modern humane advocacy movement arose in the Victorian era, and BEAUTIFUL JOE is an interesting study of the state of animals at that time. Some issues are thankfully of the past—such as the feathered hat fashion which saw untold numbers of wild birds slaughtered for the fad. Some issues, we are still battling—the cruelty of the steel-jawed leghold trap is lamented here, as is the production of white veal—which in the book’s time was accomplished by letting a calf slowly bleed out alive, and in today’s time by severely confining a calf and feeding an iron-poor diet. It was interesting to see just how long in the tooth the campaign against veal is, and is perhaps a reason why many meat lovers paradoxically reject veal, while eating many other animal foods which come from just as cruel conditions. Interestingly, we encounter an ethically-motivated vegetarian in this story, a rarity in both novels old and new. The author does keep a bit of derision on the man, who is clearly described as an eccentric. Nonetheless, he tells Laura, Beautiful Joe’s young keeper and the principal human character, “My dear young lady, if you could see what I have seen, you’d never eat another bit of meat all the days of your life.” While today, most vegetarians would be referring to factory farming—an invention of the post-WWII era—in Victorian times, this meant the arduous sea and train voyages made to take animals to slaughterhouses, and then the hideous conditions they often faced once there. Today, cruel and arduous trips to slaughter are still a serious animal welfare issue, although in the continental US it is done with tractor-trailers and the animals’ time in the slaughterhouse, while now subject to some regulation, is still fraught with abuses. However, we learn that this vegetarian is not as set in his ways as others:“It’s a possible thing to raise healthy stock, treat it kindly, kill it mercifully, eat it decently. When men do that, I, for one, will cease to be a vegetarian.”While some of today’s ethical vegetarians would agree, many would not—that the act of stealing life from a healthy young animal is in itself wrong when done simply for the pleasure of one’s palate. An interesting aside-- Miss Laura can’t bear to hear of the suffering farm animals endure to become meat, yet she is eager to hear an uncle’s hunting stories, despite the uncle decrying them himself as cruel. (Perhaps she only shuts their ears to the suffering to which she herself contributes?) The same uncle, we learn, is reformed in his ways—he has given up hunting and trapping for good. I found a great deal of dark humor when I read this line regarding the character:“Do you know, Laura, he won’t even kill a fowl for dinner. He gives it to one of the men to do.” …“Blessed are the merciful,” said Miss Laura, throwing her arm over her uncle’s shoulder. “I love you, dear Uncle John, because you are so kind to every living thing.”To use a very un-Victorian expression, LOL. Imagine this compassion applied to any other moral dilemma: “I’m a very honest person, I would never rob anyone. Instead, I pay somebody else to steal things, and then just receive the stolen merchandise.”Vegetarian ethics still had a way to go, as did some of the other values presented in this book which modern humane sensibilities would now find objectionable. Dogs and cats are free to roam, even in town. An exotic parrot is captured in the wild and sold to the family. Small pets are bought, bred, and sold. A street performer has a circus-style act starring monkeys dressed in clothes and doing foolish tricks. And of course, there was a bit of Victorian-era idealistic silliness, even though most of it is good intentioned. For example, we meet an owner who teaches her cat to stop hunting small animals by expressing her disappointment in the cat—one might as well teach a baby to never cry.That said, BEAUTIFUL JOE remains remarkably ahead of its time overall. As noted before, multiple humane issues are discussed—issues which even today are ignored by most “dog and cat” people and the media directed toward them. Horses and farm animals are extensively discussed and advocated for—perhaps not surprisingly, as horses were certainly the most visible animals of the time period, and experienced all manner of treatment in their role as the primary form of transportation. The issues relating to dogs and cats are also of course extensively discussed through the observation of Joe, who escaped an abusive master and found a loving home. Even the origins of ear cropping —it was developed by dogfighters and later adopted into the “standards” of multiple breeds—is touched upon. While we can look back at many aspects of humane thought in BEAUTIFUL JOE and feel we have improved things—or at the very least made the public more aware of them—there is one aspect in which today’s animal lovers could take home a lesson from Saunders. We read about a farmer who has a vicious dog who is being kept chained because of his propensity to attack people and animals alike. Regarding the dog, the farmer states:“I’m going to kill him. I’ve no use for a bad dog. Have plenty of animals, I say, and treat them kindly, but if there’s a vicious one among them, put it out of the way, for it is a constant danger to man and beast. It’s queer how ugly some people are about their dogs. They’ll keep them, no matter how they worry other people, and even when they’re snatching the bread out of their neighbors’ mouths.”While the dog’s destruction is presented as a sad necessity, not even Laura, the text’s most vociferous animal lover, objects to it. Today, of course, we have a small but vocal crowd that values dangerous dogs above all else, including the lives of both humans and other dogs. There are enormous efforts to rescue dogs who have permanently disfigured and even killed people, and appalling disregard for the victims practiced even by some animal care professionals. During BEAUTIFUL JOE’s era, when deaths by dog were still exceedingly rare, humane people could probably scarcely imagine the situation we are in today, with circa 30 Americans being mauled to death by vicious dogs each and every year.
Beautiful Joe has been compared to the groundbreaking Black Beauty since its publication in 1893. This first person story of an abused dog runs many parallels to Black Beauty and Margaret Marshall Saunders made no secret of having been inspired and greatly influenced by the horse novel. The two even met comparable success. Black Beauty was already famous and Beautiful Joe soon became the best-selling Canadian novel ever. (Though the true story it is loosely based on took place in Canada, the novel is set in Maine.)Like so many modern day successes in books, these two are divided by a great chasm that is rarely acknowledged: One author was a superb writer: One was not.Beautiful Joe follows a narrative so heavy-handed and explanatory that preaching is too soft a word. It's like being hit in the face with a sandbag over and over again while someone shouts at you, "Do you get it now?!"Yet, even with Ms. Saunders' ham-fisted, long-winded, ranting at her reader, by the end of the book, I'm not sure I did get her message. (Clearly, I'm just as slow and ignorant as she imagined her audience to be.)Beautiful Joe is a mind-numbing sermon on how human beings must stop being so cruel to animals and all God's creatures deserve kindness and compassion. Got it so far. Then, there is also the dated nature of the text to be considered. Yes, the book is very old and this should be taken into account for any modern review. Got that too. What I fail to understand is how Beautiful Joe ever struck such a cord, ever reached such animal-loving masses, ever got anyone to take it seriously, when nearly every animal kindness preaching human character (and all the characters in the book preach just as much as the author) are abusive to animals themselves.The examples are rampant but here are a few. Main characters, the good guys: shoot their own dogs because they were "bad tempered" and growled at them, poison cats by prying open their mouths and pouring potassium cyanide on their tongues, whip dogs and ponies as part of their "training," hunt, trap, and set packs of dogs on wild animals, and all the time preach kindness to the animal kingdom, wild and domestic.Miss Laura, the heroine of the story and Beautiful Joe's teenage mistress, beats her six-week-old Fox Terrier puppy with a bootlace when she finds him chewing her father's hat. This is followed by a quick reassurance to the reader in case you thought the angelic Miss Laura was mean to dogs:"She never struck a little dog with her hand or a stick. She said clubs were for big dogs and switches for little dogs, if one had to use them."Ohhh. . . . Now I get it. Of course. Nice girl. She would never beat him with a stick. Heavens no. Only big dogs should be beaten with clubs.But, you protest, dated book? That was the way it was then? Everyone thought you had to hit a dog if you wanted to train it?I'm a dog trainer myself and have been for many years. I've spent over fifteen years studying new, established, and antiquated methods—from whip and club to bridge signals and the No Change Response System. I've researched historical training and working dogs going back well before 1893. Beating a dog to "train" it was not a universally accepted technique at the time and positive training methods did exist.These were the best methods to Ms. Saunders, however, and—since all the good guys in Beautiful Joe share her views and preach her sermon—that's how dogs were trained by kindly owners in her book.Despite the painful writing (worse than the brutal events it portrays), endless sermons, and shocking contradictions, Beautiful Joe did make changes for the better in the way people treated and related to animals and animal welfare around the turn of the century. For that alone it deserves to still be on our shelves. Though perhaps not the same one as Black Beauty, which rises hooves and paws above the rest as the pioneering, and outstanding, first person animal story that started well organized animal welfare campaigns in the first place.
What do You think about Beautiful Joe (2007)?
I found an older copy of this book as a gift for a nephew, and took time to re-read it before gifting. My mother read it to us when we were children...perhaps I was 8? It made a good and lasting impression, but I wanted to see how it read now. It was revolutionary in its time and resulted in many advances in dog care, as it was inspired by Black Beauty. Joe was a real dog. What is interesting about reading it today is the appreciation one gets for the advances since it was first penned, throughout society. It was written in Canada, but reflects it's time in the US. Women did not have the vote; the government did not take any responsibility for roads...those are 2 examples. For folks both liberal and conservative, it shows a glimpse of the way things were, and the things folks predicted "if there were change". Reading in the context of living in that change is useful.Understand that some of the "information" is now misinformation, as veterinary science has advanced. For example, giving a dog plenty of clean water is not going to prevent rabies. However, it helps us not take for granted the power vaccines and such have given us to help and care for our pets.
—Chrystal Hays
My aunt gave this book to us this summer and said that she had read and loved it when she was about 8 years old. It is about a dog who was born on a farm with a very abusive owner. The dog is soon rescued and taken in by a loving family. Kaitlyn loved it and always begged me to read more. We were instructed that the book is to share with all our cousins but Kaitlyn doesn't want to give it up. She is now starting to read it a second time on her own. My aunt tells me that there is a cemetery in Ontario where the real Beautiful Joe is buried. She says many other animal lovers have buried their pets there too. Anyway, thank you Auntie Donna. We loved Beautiful Joe.
—Kim
This is one of the few books I read as a child that made it to my "read" list. Being a "dog person" even as a child, this book was one of the first real books I remember reading, and was given to me by my mother for a collection of books she had as a child. I was given this book as a gift a few years ago, after mentioning how it was one of my favorite childhood books, and made the mistake of trying to re-read it. I got through the first 5 pages and realized the book would never be the same, and
—Sirius Scientist
