Bring 'Em Back Alive (book)
Encyclopedia
Frank Buck (animal collector)
Frank Howard Buck was a hunter and "collector of wild animals," as well as a movie actor, director, writer and producer...
’s first book, a huge best seller that catapulted him to world fame and was translated into many languages. Buck tells of his adventures capturing exotic animals.
Writing with Edward Anthony
Edward Anthony (writer)
Edward Anthony was a journalist and writer who co-wrote Frank Buck’s first two books, Bring 'Em Back Alive, and Wild Cargo.-Early career:...
, Buck relates some of his most frightening experiences, among them, his battle with an escaped king cobra. This venomous snake is the only jungle animal, Buck says, that has no fear of either man or beast. "Nowhere in the world is there an animal or reptile that can quite match its unfailing determination to wipe out
anything that crosses its path. This lust to kill invests the king cobra with a quality of fiendishness that puts it in a class by itself, almost making it a jungle synonym for death." When the escaped king cobra confronted him, Buck wrote, for an instant, mind and body were numb. He stripped off the white duck jacket he wore over his bare skin and as the snake struck he lunged forward, threw himself with the coat in front of him upon it and hit the ground with a bang, with the cobra, trapped in the jacket under him.
Buck describes many other fearsome encounters. A tapir
Tapir
A Tapir is a large browsing mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile snout. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. There are four species of Tapirs: the Brazilian Tapir, the Malayan Tapir, Baird's Tapir and the Mountain...
he was trying to medicate made a sudden terrific charge, hitting him in the stomach with its head and knocking him down. Then the enraged beast jumped on him, pounded him with its hind legs, and dragged him around its pen. The tapir was trying to rip off Buck’s face with its huge jaws and powerful teeth when Buck's native helpers came running to his rescue. One of them shoved a two-by-four plank down the animal's throat, allowing Buck to escape.
“The book can be recommended to anybody who likes being made to sit on the edge of
his chair and gasp for breath as his eyes eat up the print to see what happens next,” wrote the New York Times Book Review. Many decades later, these remarkable stories have lost none of their pace or their power to thrill.
George T. Bye
George T. Bye
George Thurman Bye was the Literary agent of Frank Buck and Eleanor Roosevelt. A prominent figure in the literary world before World War II, Bye rose to fame as the agent of people in the news and amateur authors with something timely or sensational to say, so called “stunt books”.-Early life and...
, a New York Literary agent
Literary agent
A literary agent is an agent who represents writers and their written works to publishers, theatrical producers and film producers and assists in the sale and deal negotiation of the same. Literary agents most often represent novelists, screenwriters and major non-fiction writers...
, represented Frank Buck
Frank Buck (animal collector)
Frank Howard Buck was a hunter and "collector of wild animals," as well as a movie actor, director, writer and producer...
in the publication of Bring 'Em Back Alive and Buck's subsequent books.
In 2000, Steven Lehrer
Steven Lehrer
Steven Lehrer is a physician and writer, known for medical research and for his English translation of Else Ury.-Early years and education:Lehrer was born in Los Angeles...
published a new collection of these stories.