Horacio Quiroga achieved great popularity with his Cuentos de la Selva (published 1918), translated into English as Jungle Tales, a collection of eight short stories for children of all ages, permeated with tenderness and humor and filled with whimsy in which Quiroga captures the magic of the jungle, which is the scene of exciting adventures illuminated by nature in all its splendor. These delightful stories are peopled by talking animals and are cast in a fable mold, usually with an underlying moral. A place where snakes throw glamorous parties with flamingos, stingrays join forces to fight off man-eating jaguars, and a giant tortoise carries a wounded man on its shell for hundreds of kilometers to bring him to safety.

Authorized translation from the Spanish by Arthur Livingston.
Copyright, 1922 by DUFFIELD AND COMPANY

Contents

The giant tortoise’s golden rule
How the flamingoes got their stockings
The parrot that lost its tail
The alligator war
The blind doe
The story of two raccoon cubs and two man cubs
How the rays defended the ford
The lazy bee
Translation notes