Reproduction of the original: The Flight of Pony Baker by William Dean Howells

The Flight of Pony Baker is a novel for children which tells the story of a young boy named Pony Baker who, throughout the book, attempts to run away from his home where he lives with his mother, father, and five sisters. The setting of the story is "fifty years ago" in the Boy's Town of Ohio, the state where Howells was born and raised. Pony lives in the Boy's Town with his mother, father, and five sisters, whom his mother always wants him to play with. Pony's mother is very overprotective of Pony, which makes her a bad mother when it comes to having fun. Pony's father has done some things that have given Pony the right to run away as well. An older boy named Jim Leonard suggests that Pony go with the Indians and that the Indians would like him and then adopt him into their tribe. Extract: "If there was any fellow in the Boy's Town fifty years ago who had a good reason to run off it was Pony Baker. Pony was not his real name; it was what the boys called him, because there were so many fellows who had to be told apart, as Big Joe and Little Joe, and Big John and Little John, and Big Bill and Little Bill, that they got tired of telling boys apart that way; and after one of the boys called him Pony Baker, so that you could know him from his cousin Frank Baker, nobody ever called him anything else." William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author, literary critic, and playwright.

In this series, William Dean Howells delightfully describes the early years of his life, in the "Boy's Town" of Ohio, the state where he was born and raised. These stories remain as a vivid autobiographical records and colorful images of a life in the mid-nineteenth century American town. Extract: "If there was any fellow in the Boy's Town fifty years ago who had a good reason to run off it was Pony Baker. Pony was not his real name; it was what the boys called him, because there were so many fellows who had to be told apart, as Big Joe and Little Joe, and Big John and Little John, and Big Bill and Little Bill, that they got tired of telling boys apart that way; and after one of the boys called him Pony Baker, so that you could know him from his cousin Frank Baker, nobody ever called him anything else." William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author, literary critic, and playwright. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own prolific writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day", and the novels The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Traveler from Altruria. Howells is known to be the father of American realism, and a denouncer of the sentimental novel. He was the first American author to bring a realist aesthetic to the literature of the United States. His stories of Boston upper crust life set in the 1850s are highly regarded among scholars of American fiction.

Tells the story of a young boy named Pony Baker who, throughout the book, attempts to run away from his home where he lives with his mother, father, and five sisters.

'The Flight of Pony Baker' will at once commend itself to boys and their elders because it is the work of William Dean Howells. Mr. Howells knows the modern American boy so thoroughly, his ambitions and traits, his temptations and joys, that one is predisposed to like Pony Baker. He lived in a small country town and was petted by his mother much to his disgust, and sternly suppressed by his father; and of course, being a boy, he planned to run away to the Indians, and, later, he made up his mind to join a circus—what boy has not? But through all these phases of his young life our author brings Pony Baker, showing his old-time charm of narration. The days are those before the war; the scene is in a little Ohio river town; and the characters are real boys and real girls. Pony Baker decides upon flight from his home, and the most admirable humor is shown in narrating his various attempts at absconding, not one of which becomes known to his unsuspecting parents until the book's close; and even this attempt is not carried very far.

This carefully crafted ebook: "The Complete Works of William Dean Howells: 27 Novels & 40+ Short Stories, Including Plays, Poems, Travel Sketches, Historical Works & Autobiography (Illustrated)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author, literary critic, and playwright. He was known for the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novels The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Traveler from Altruria. Table of Contents: A Forgone Conclusion A Chance Acquaintance A Modern Instance A Pair of Patient Lovers A Traveler from Altruria An Open-Eyed Conspiracy Annie Kilburn April Hopes Dr. Breen's Practice Fennel and Rue Indian Summer Questionable Shapes Ragged Lady The Coast of Bohemia The Kentons The Lady of Aroostook The Landlord at Lion's Head The Leatherwood God The Minister's Charge The Quality of Mercy The Rise of Silas Lapham The Story of a Play Through the Eye of the Needle Their Wedding Journey A Hazard of New Fortunes Their Silver Wedding Journey The Flight of Pony Baker Christmas Every Day and Other Stories Boy Life Between the Dark and the Daylight The Daughter of the Storage and Other Things in Prose and Verse A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories Buying a Horse The Night Before Christmas A Counterfeit Presentment Bride Roses A Likely Story Evening Dress Five O'Clock Tea The Albany Depot The Elevator The Garotters The Parlor Car The Register The Sleeping-Car Poems Venetian Life Italian Journeys Roman Holidays and Others Suburban Sketches Familiar Spanish Travels A Little Swiss Sojourn London Films Seven English Cities Stories of Ohio Criticism and Fiction Literary Friends and Acquaintance Literature and Life My Literary Passions Imaginary Interviews and Other Essays Modern Italian Poets A Psychological Counter-Current in Recent Fiction The Man of Letters as a Man of Business Emile Zola Henry James Carl Schurz A Boy's Town Years of My Youth…