MONARCH: the Big Bear of Tallac by Ernest Thompson Seton

Ernest Thompson Seton's book, "Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac." Published in 1919, it tells the story of a Grizzly who ended up in a cage in Golden Gate Park, and the people who knew him. Narrated by David "Grizzly" Smith. From the FOREWORD: "The story of Monarch is founded on material gathered from many sources as well as from personal experience, and the Bear is of necessity a composite. The great Grizzly Monarch, still pacing his prison floor at the Golden Gate Park, is the central fact of the tale. "In telling it I have taken two liberties that I conceive to be proper in a story of this sort. "First, I have selected for my hero an unusual individual. Second, I have ascribed to that one animal the adventures of several of his kind. "The aim of the story is to picture the life of a Grizzly with the added glamour of a remarkable Bear personality. The intention is to convey the known truth. But the fact that liberties have been taken excludes the story from the catalogue of pure science. It must be considered rather an historical novel of Bear life. "Many different Bears were concerned in the early adventures here related, but the last two chapters, the captivity and the despair of the Big Bear, are told as they were told to me by several witnesses, including my friends the two mountaineers. - Ernest Thompson Seton