Elephant Electrocuted by Edison Inspires a Novel

KINGSTON, Ontario - Nov. 19, 2013 - PRLog -- Conquistador Press is proud to announce the publication in print and eBook of Samuel Hawley’s novel BAD ELEPHANT FAR STREAM, the life story of a circus elephant, told through her own eyes. Inspired by the true story of Topsy, the subject of the 1903 Thomas Edison film "Electrocuting an Elephant," it begins in the forests of Ceylon in the late 1860s with the capture of a baby elephant known to her own kind as Far Stream. She is taken to America chained in a ship, a journey of several months, and sent to the Adam Forepaugh Circus in Philadelphia. There, Far Stream embarks on a new life under the big top, taught to do tricks and perform in the show’s famous elephant dancing quadrille. She crisscrosses North America for thirty years with the circus, experiencing hardships, kidnapping, escapes and adventure. But when she comes to outweigh her keepers by a factor of forty--it's hard not to hurt somebody. It's hard not to be "bad."

Author Samuel Hawley’s books include the highly acclaimed Speed Duel: The Inside Story of the Land Speed Record in the Sixties; the Independent Publishers Awards silver medal winner I Just Ran: Percy Williams, World’s Fastest Human, named one of "5 Best Sports Books of the Year" by the CBC; and The Imjin War, the most comprehensive account in English of Japan’s 16th-century invasion of Korea and attempted conquest of China. Bad Elephant Far Stream is his first novel.

Bad Elephant Far Stream by Samuel Hawley
Published by Conquistador Press (November 2013)
263 pages
Genre: historical fiction
ISBN 978-0-9920786-0-7

For more information or to request a copy of the book or an interview with the author, contact the publisher at info@conquistadorpress.com

Visit Conquistador Press at www.conquistadorpress.com
Visit author Samuel Hawley at www.samuelhawley.com

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