The Wild Animal’s Story: Nonhuman Protagonists in Twentieth-Century Canadian Literature through the Lens of Practical Zoocriticism

Science 
When Seton and Roberts were born in 1860, the word ‘scientist’ had 
existed for less than thirty years. ‘Natural philosopher’ had been the general 
term, until Reverend William Whewell made the new suggestion during the third 
annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 
1833 (Chapell 3). It was initially unpopular because the title was seen as too 
restrictive. The nineteenth century brought forth an explosion of new sciences 

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and sub-sciences, and the creation of unique names for these subjects (for 
instance, seismology in 1858 or embryology in 1859) signalled a new air of 
professionalism. Yet it was not until the close of the century that the term 
‘scientist’ finally gained credibility (Chapell 3, Richardson 3). Interestingly, this 
acceptance coincided with the rise of laboratory science
—a fact that, as I 
suggest below, may be of consequence to the early history of animal 
psychology research. More importantly, however, I find significance in the fact 
that Seton and Roberts were born in the middle of this process; roughly thirty 
years after Whewell made his suggestion and thirty years before it took hold. 
Moreover, these two writers who blurred the boundaries between fact and 
fiction were both in their twenties and beginning to write when T.H. Huxley and 
Matthew Arnold had the famous debate that signalled the emerging disciplinary 
gap between the sciences and humanities. Thus, I argue that, despite being 
born into an age of relative flexibility between science and literature, by the time 
that Seton
’s and Roberts’ animal stories gained popularity at the end of the 
century, the professionalization of the sciences meant that their approach now 
lacked the authority to be taken seriously. It is clear that the changing scientific 
contexts of the wild animal story and Nature Fakers controversy demand 
serious critical attention, and yet until now they have been almost entirely 
ignored. 
Laura Otis observes in 
Literature and Science in the Nineteenth Century
(2002) that 
“the notion of a ‘split’ between literature and science, of a ‘gap’ to be 
‘bridged’ between the two” had never been a “nineteenth-century phenomenon” 
(xvii)
. In the “popular press,” the “two commingled and were accessible to all 
readers;” scientists “quoted well-known poets” and writers “explored the 

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implications of scientific theories” (xvii). She describes the work of Edgar Allen 
Poe and Mark Twain, for instance:
As science gained prestige, literary writers in turn gained credibility by 
incorporating the voices of scientists. This strategy worked particularly 
well in the American ‘tall tale’ genre. Writers like Edgar Allan Poe and 
Mark Twain consciously imitated scientists’ styles and use of evidence, 
exploiting their own writing techniques to play with scientists’ ideas and 
encourage readers to rethink them. If readers mistook the fiction for 
science, it was merely part of the game. (xxiv) 
There is an obvious difference, however, between this playful challenge and 
appropriation of science, and Seton
’s and Roberts’ sincere attempts to 
contribute to the study of animal minds. I suggest that by carefully negotiating 
this appropriation, writers like Poe and Twain ensured that their works were still 
obviously 
fictional
and that, most importantly
, they were not seen to ‘overstep’ 
the bounds of the author. This would be increasingly important, as the 
processes of scientific specialization and professionalization over the second 
half of the century made it more and more difficult to claim the authority to 
speak about science. A
s indicated by Bernard Lightman’s study, 
Victorian 
Popularizers of Science
(2007), this was not simply elitism for its own sake. Not 
only did those “who could claim to speak on behalf of science” gain “immense 
cultural authority and intellectual prestige,” they were responsible for shaping 
and defining ‘science’ itself (5). As the “modern, professionalized body of 
scientists was still in the making,” a number of crucial questions were still 
unanswered: “What, exactly, was proper scientific method? For that matter, 
what was science? Which groups could participate in the debates on these 
questions?” (5). Lightman concludes that the “stakes were therefore quite high 
in the fight to be recognized as a
n intellectual who spoke on behalf of science” 
(5). It was perhaps somewhat inevitable, then, that Seton
’s and Roberts’ 
attempts to engage with the sciences were not taken seriously. In fact, as we 

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shall see in the next chapter, 
Burroughs’ original condemnation of the wild 
animal story was on the basis that it was ‘sham’ natural history. And so, as I will 
suggest, we might now read this cr
iticism as Burroughs’ attempt to reinforce the 
parameters of the field, as well as his own authority within it.