In this study of the relationship between men and their horses in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, Monica Mattfeld explores the experience of horsemanship and how it defined one’s gendered and political positions within society. Men of the period used horses to transform themselves, via the image of the centaur, into something other—something powerful, awe-inspiring, and mythical. Focusing on the manuals, memoirs, satires, images, and ephemera produced by some of the period’s most influential equestrians, Mattfeld examines how the concepts and practices of horse husbandry evolved in relation to social, cultural, and political life. She looks closely at the role of horses in the world of Thomas Hobbes and William Cavendish; the changes in human social behavior and horse handling ushered in by elite riding houses such as Angelo’s Academy and Mr. Carter’s; and the public perception of equestrian endeavors, from performances at places such as Astley’s Amphitheatre to the satire of Henry William Bunbury. Throughout, Mattfeld shows how horses aided the performance of idealized masculinity among communities of riders, in turn influencing how men were perceived in regard to status, reputation, and gender. Drawing on human-animal studies, gender studies, and historical studies, Becoming Centaur offers a new account of masculinity that reaches beyond anthropocentrism to consider the role of animals in shaping man.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE PRIX DU MEILLEUR LIVRE ÉTRANGER The Centaur is a modern retelling of the legend of Chiron, the noblest and wisest of the centaurs, who, painfully wounded yet unable to die, gave up his immortality on behalf of Prometheus. In the retelling, Olympus becomes small-town Olinger High School; Chiron is George Caldwell, a science teacher there; and Prometheus is Caldwell’s fifteen-year-old son, Peter. Brilliantly conflating the author’s remembered past with tales from Greek mythology, John Updike translates Chiron’s agonized search for relief into the incidents and accidents of three winter days spent in rural Pennsylvania in 1947. The result, said the judges of the National Book Award, is “a courageous and brilliant account of a conflict in gifts between an inarticulate American father and his highly articulate son.”

One night during the Perseid meteor shower, Arianne thinks she sees a shooting star land in the fields surrounding her family's horse farm. About a year later, one of their horses gives birth to a baby centaur. The family has enough attention already as Arianne's six-year-old brother was born with birth defects caused by an experimental drug—the last thing they need is more scrutiny. But their clients soon start growing suspicious. Just how long is it possible to keep a secret? And what will happen if the world finds out? At a time when so many novels are set in other worlds, Jane Yolen imagines what it would be like if a creature from another world came to ours in this thoughtfully written, imaginative novel, Centaur Rising. A Christy Ottaviano Book

"Dreams of the Centaur" brings to light for the first time in fiction the tragic enslavement of the Yaqui Indians by Porfirio Diaz's regime at the turn of the last century. Through the lives of the Ducals--a Mexican family who has created a ranch out of the desert--this "Western saga brimming with the heart and soul of Mexico . . . is an extraordinarily rich novel" ("West Coast Review of Books").

Greg Wrenn's debut collection opens with a long poem in which a man undergoes surgery to become a centaur. Other poems speak in voices as varied as those of Robert Mapplethorpe, Hercules, and a Wise Man at the birth of Jesus. Centaur skitters along the blurred lines between compulsivity and following one's heart, stasis and self-realization, human and animal. Here, suffering and transcendence are restlessly conjoined.

"A novel of magical realism set in an early twentieth-century Jewish immigrant colony in southern Brazil"--Provided by publisher.

Centaur fantasy romance

It’s the beginning of summer break, and high school English teacher Shannon Parker is ready to relax poolside with some red wine and a good book. She’s friggin’ earned it! But first—a little shopping, a la fancy estate auction. Surrounded by old folks and even older artifacts, Shannon never expects to find something that shocks her down to her very core: an ancient vase, complete with a beautiful painting of a goddess that looks just like her. And just as she’s stealing away with her seriously suspicious purchase, she’s magically thrown into the world of Partholon, where not only has she taken the place of Rhiannon, Goddess Incarnate and Epona’s Chosen, but she’s due to be married to a surly (but oh-so-handsome) High Shaman centaur, ClanFintan. But serving as Epona’s Chosen isn’t just luxury baths and buff horse-guys. A dark power grows in the wastelands to the north, and Rhiannon will need much more than just the favor of Epona to protect the land—and the man—she’s grown to love.

Richard D. Spalding was ready to fly with the Centaurs, Buffalo Bill's old outfit, as part of D Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 25th Infantry Division. The Cobra--an AH-IG helicopter armed with rockets and machine guns and cannon--was the first U.S. Army helicopter designed as an attack helicopter, and Spalding soon found himself pitched into a fierce new kind of aerial warfare.