author
Curtis Dunham
Best remembered for playful, early-20th-century books filled with talking animals and light satire, this little-known writer left behind a small but memorable body of public-domain work. The surviving record is sparse, which gives the books an extra sense of rediscovery.
3 Audiobooks
Two in a Zoo
by Curtis Dunham, Oliver Herford
Gambolling with Galatea: a Bucolic Romance
by Curtis Dunham
Wurra-Wurra : A legend of Saint Patrick at Tara
by Curtis Dunham
About the author
Curtis Dunham is an obscure author whose surviving bibliography points to an active publishing period around the turn of the 20th century. Open Library lists works including The Casino Girl in London, by Herself, Two in a Zoo, Wurra-Wurra, Blood Money, The Golden Goblin, and Gambolling with Galatea, suggesting a range that included fiction, fantasy, and whimsical storytelling.
Among the best-known titles now easiest to find are Two in a Zoo and Gambolling with Galatea. Records from Project Gutenberg and Google Books describe Two in a Zoo as a children's book created with illustrator Oliver Herford and first published in 1904, while Gambolling with Galatea appeared in 1909 and leans into comic, pastoral fantasy with talking animals and a playful tone.
Very little reliable biographical detail about Dunham the person seems to survive in the easily available sources, so it is safer to let the books speak for the author. What does come through clearly is a taste for humor, fancy, and animal-centered imagination that still feels distinctive in revived public-domain editions.