Book Review: Pride of the Moor

Title: Pride of the Moor

Author: Vian Smith

Date: 1962

Publisher: Doubleday

ISBN: none

Length: 284 pages

Quote: “There’s got to be a change of luck some time.”

Like my short story, “The Luck of Jesse Barclay,” this novel is an exploration of beliefs about “Luck.” In my story one man seems to have “all the luck,” both good and bad. In Smith’s novel one man, Howard Wonnacott, has all the bad luck.

Wonnacott has inherited a farm; he works; he earns money, but never gets ahead. Even if he were to find an abandoned champion race horse out on the moor, browsing with the moor ponies, and bring it home, it’d die.

So his little boy Mark finds such a horse. Mare, rather, and she’s pregnant. She won races and was bred, in her day; now she’s old, her humans don’t want to feed her. Howard brings her home. Almost immediately she dies. But she leaves behind a colt who grows up with Mark and will do anything for Mark. Win races? Steeplechases! The horse they call Question Mark, son of the Pride of the Moor, keeps winning, bringing home prize after prize. Howard can’t make a profit at anything, but Mark and his horse are raking it in.

Do not buy this one if you’re looking for a feel-good story. There’s a spin-off—in a later, happier novel Smith picked up the career of Pilgrim Star, who raced against Question Mark. Pride of the Moor is only for readers who can handle a sad, ironic story.

To buy it here, send $5 per book + $5 per package + $1 per online payment to the appropriate address at the very bottom of the screen. Three more books of this size should fit into one $5 package.