Raymond Sheppard and "Zoo"

 

Zoo Vol.1 No.6 November 1936 pp.12-13

Volume 1, issue 6 of "Zoo" was published in November 1936 and on pages 12-13 there's a single illustration by Raymond Sheppard. The day I found it, I think I went a bit mad, because I bought two bound volumes of the magazine to obtain that one illustration - of course, hoping there would be more. Unfortunately that was not the case! There are other artworks by Ronald Lampitt and others but this is primarily photographs accompanying articles. My copies are bound so rather hard to scan, as you can see.

The magazine was the "Official Organ of the Zoological Society of London" with Julian S. Huxley as Advisory Editor and Hugh Pilcher (F.Z.S.) as the Editor. Why the Editor chose to truncate the title from its American title "The Last Trumpeters" is not known. I've copied the contents below to show what sort of articles appeared and this particular issue has the following contents:

Articles

• When Reptiles Ruled the World, by L. R. Brightwell, F.Z.S.
• Children of the West Wind, by Seton Gordon
• Wings over the Sea by V. C. Wynne-Edwards
• A. R. Wallace Explores Malaya
• Fashions in Dogs, by Major Milford Brice
• The Open Book of Evolution, by Julian Huxley
• New Paradise for Old
• Protector of the Birds by E. A. Guest
• Rats—Their Life or Yours, by Margaret Shaw

Pages of Pictures

• Wild Kangaroos
• Black Bruin
• X-Ray Reveals Hidden Beauties
• Readers' Prize Photographs

Fiction

• The Last Trumpeter, short story by Elmer Ransom
• Beowulf, serial story by Ernest Lewis

Features

• Zoo Stars—the Kangaroos
• News from the Zoos
• Nature Parliament
• Frances Pitt's Nature Walk
• S. L. Bensusan's Countryside Chronicle
• Book and Film Reviews
• Zoo Club News
• Your Pets
• Jubilee's Jests
• Animals in Legend
• Animals in Art
• Zoo crossword puzzle

The Swans, a 1972 book, was written by Peter Scott and the Wildfowl Trust, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. The flyleaf:

There is a magic about swans that has persisted through the ages, in heraldry, art, myth, and ornithology. Now for the first time we have a truly comprehensive book about these noble birds. It covers all the eight species, including the Whistling Swan of our Atlantic seaboard and the magnificent Trumpeter Swan of the West, largest of North American waterfowl, whose recovery from the brink of extinction is one of the more heartening stories in the annals of wildlife conservation. In Great Britain, of course, the Mute Swan
has been the British Crown bird since earliest times, and has thus drawn a measure of protection.

For our purposes, I found a handy outline of "The Last Trumpeter" by Elmer Ransom in Scott's book. In the chapter on "Conservation",  by G. V. T. Matthews he wrotes:

Conservation is no longer the preserve of the ageing, desperate to retain something of the good earth they have known. There has been an upsurge of interest among the young, urgent to prevent the destruction of the natural world before they have had time to enjoy it. Education has at last become a more powerful force than experience. In my own case the dilemmas of conservation were first thrust home, in my early teens, by Elmer Ransom's story called 'The Last Trumpeter', published in the old Zoo magazine. In this tale the last breeding pair of Trumpeter Swans was migrating south with their three young. Ambushed by shooters, the young were destroyed but the parents flew on. Trapped on their roosting lake by a sudden overnight freeze-up, the male struggled free but the female was held in an icy grip and was about to be devoured by a ravening wolf. A field-biologist, who happened to be studying the decline of the Trumpeter Swan towards extinction, appeared on the scene and drove off the wolf. He himself was faint with hunger and exposure. However he cut her free, she rejoined her mate and the species' continuity was ensured. The story ended with the biologist drifting into numbing death. 

 THE AUTHOR

Elmer Ransom 1932

This handy biography appeared in the June 1934  of the Writers Digest:

ELMER RANSOM is forty-two years old and a graduate of the University of Georgia. He lives in Augusta, Ga., and writes when he isn't fishing or hunting. He served throughout the World War as First Lieutenant, six months of the time being spent in France. This experience was the background for a number of his stories. He is best known, however, for his animal stories and articles on the outdoors. His story, "Rack, Son of Ezekiel," was published in COSMOPOLITAN, and in "Favorite Stories of Famous Writers," the Cosmopolitan anthology containing the six best short stories published in the magazine during the year. COSMOPOLITAN stated that this story drew more fan mail than any other single story published in two years. Ransom has had fiction published in recent months in SATURDAY EVENING POST, FIELD AND STREAM, ARGOSY and articles in various trade journals. His Cosmo story was his first fiction entry into the slick paper field, aside from the Cosmopolitan book magazine of which he is a contributor. At this writing COSMOPOLITAN, OUTDOOR LIFE, and ARGOSY have Ransom stories on hand for which they have paid and which will appear shortly.

I found some of Ransom's work appeared regularly in Field and Stream from 1930 through to, at least 1937, Argosy 1934,  and in the same year he wrote articles for Writer's Digest including this lovely advice (January 1938)

"The Case Method", Writer's Digest, January 1938 

He also wrote for Outdoor Life (1934), Good Housekeeping (1936), The Popular (1937),  many articles began to appear in Atlanta Constitution, especially about local parks, mountains streams etc. The newspaper magazine supplement This Week contained stories by him from 1937-1940. In a letter appearing in the science-fiction pulp magazine Astounding (volume 19 no.5, July 1937) one Elmer Ransom praises a previous story and we see his address is Augusta, Georgia (USA).  Tracing stories reprinted in UK magazines I could only find the focus of this article Zoo plus Everybodys, February 1939.

In The Southerner: a biographical encyclopaedia of Southern people. (New Orleans: Southern Editors Association, 1945) we learn Elmer Inglesby Ransom, 1892-1942  was born in Augusta, Georgia on 25 February, 1892, son of George Mortimer Ransom and Susie Harker Ransom. He attended the local University and on August 30, 1916, married Lilliam Van Dyke Ransom and they had 2 daughters , Caroline Ransom Freeland and Sue Elmer Ransom Flater. Ransom served as 1st Lieutenant in World War I and later became a teacher of Physics, and then Guest Lecturer (appropriately, on the short story), at the School of Journalism, University of Georgia. Apparently he began writing short stories in 1928 and contributed to Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Country Gentleman, American Magazine, Field and Stream, Sports Afield, Liberty, etc.

BIBLIOGRAPHY of BOOKS ONLY

• "Rack, Son of Ezekiel" in  Favorite Stories by Famous Writers , New York: International Magazine Company, Inc. 1932
• The last trumpeters and other stories, University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1941
• Fishing's just luck : and other stories Howell, Soskin Publishers, New York, 1945
• The woodland book Howell, Soskin, Publishers, New York, 1945 - illustrated by Sabra Mallett contained reprints of short articles from "This Week" magazine 
• "Rack, Son of Ezekiel" in  Teen-age Companion, ed.Frank Owen, Grosset & Dunlap, 1946  

If anyone fancies creating a bibliography of his short stories and articles, a good starting place would be the Internet Archive