author
David Grew
Known for vivid animal adventures set on the Canadian prairies, this early 20th-century American writer built stories around horses, dogs, and other creatures facing harsh landscapes and human pressure. His best-known work, Beyond Rope and Fence, has stayed in circulation through later reprints and a Project Gutenberg edition.
1 Audiobook
Beyond Rope and Fence
by David Grew
About the author
Born in 1887 and dying in 1971, David Grew was an American author remembered mainly for children’s and young readers’ adventure stories about animals. Sources on his work consistently connect him with tales set in western Canada and the northern plains, especially stories centered on wild or half-wild horses.
His books include Beyond Rope and Fence, The Sorrel Stallion, The Ghost Mare, Whitepaw Goes North, and The Buckskin Colt. Beyond Rope and Fence, first published in 1922, follows a mare named Queen on the Canadian prairies and shows Grew’s interest in animal point of view, survival, and freedom.
Some catalog and reader sources also note that Grew spent part of his childhood in North Dakota, and that his fiction drew on those early western experiences. While detailed biographical information is limited, the surviving record of his books suggests a writer with a lasting feel for open country, tough weather, and the lives of animals on the edge of domestication.