Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (born September 13, 1931)
is an American author. She has published fiction and non-fiction books and articles on animal behavior, Paleolithic life, and the !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert.
Early life and education
Thomas was born to anthropologist
Lorna Marshall and Laurence K. Marshall, co-founder of the
Raytheon Corporation
The Raytheon Company was a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft unti ...
. She is the sister of ethnographic filmmaker
John Marshall
John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remains the longest-serving chief justice and fourth-longes ...
.
She was raised in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge becam ...
,
Massachusetts and attended
Abbot Academy in
Andover, Massachusetts
Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was settled in 1642 and incorporated in 1646."Andover" in '' The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th ed., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 387. As of t ...
.
After beginning undergraduate studies at
Smith College, Thomas took a break to travel in Africa with her family and later completed a degree in English from
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and h ...
.
Career
Between 1950 and 1956, she took part in three expeditions to live with and study the Ju/'hoansi (
!Kung Bushmen) of the
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa.
It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal ...
in
Namibia and
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...
.
During these trips, Thomas kept a journal which she later drew on when writing her first book, ''The Harmless People''.
She later drew on this experience in her fiction, depicting the life of paleolithic hunter gatherers in the novels ''Reindeer Moon'' and ''The Animal Wife''.
A popular success and
''New York Times'' bestseller,
her book ''The Hidden Life of Dogs'' also drew criticism from some in the scientific and dog training communities for Thomas' observational methods and analysis.
Thomas wrote a follow-up book, ''The Social Life of Dogs: The Grace of Canine Company'', as well as books on feline and deer behavior. She also contributes, along with
Sy Montgomery
Sy Montgomery (born February 7, 1958) is a German born, American naturalist, author and scriptwriter who writes for children as well as adults. She is author of 34 books, including ''The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wo ...
, to a column called
Tamed/Untamed in the ''
Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
''.
Personal life
Ms. Thomas has long made her home in
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until 1 ...
,
New Hampshire. With proceeds from her bestselling book about dogs, she donated land for Peterborough's first town beach at Cunningham Pond, where canines of town residents are always welcome. She served on the town's Select Board for 15 years.
Bibliography
Non-fiction
;Anthropology
*
*''Warrior Herdsmen'' (1965),
Secker & Warburg
Harvill Secker is a British publishing company formed in 2005 from the merger of Secker & Warburg and the Harvill Press.
History
Secker & Warburg
Secker & Warburg was formed in 1935 from a takeover of Martin Secker, which was in receivership, ...
, ASIN B0000CMXZI
*
*''The Old Way: A Story of the First People'' (2006)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
;Ethology and animal culture
*''The Hidden Life of Life'' (2018),
Penn State University Press,
*''The Hidden Life of Dogs'' (1993),
Houghton Mifflin
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often v ...
,
*''The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture'' (1994),
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...
,
*''The Social Lives of Dogs: The Grace of Canine Company'' (2000), Simon & Schuster,
*''The Hidden Life of Deer: Lessons from the Natural World'' (2009),
Harper
Harper may refer to:
Names
* Harper (name), a surname and given name
Places
;in Canada
*Harper Islands, Nunavut
*Harper, Prince Edward Island
;In the United States
*Harper, former name of Costa Mesa, California in Orange County
* Harper, Illi ...
,
*''A Million Years with You: A Memoir of Life Observed'' (2013),
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
Novels
*''Reindeer Moon'' (1987), Houghton Mifflin,
*''The Animal Wife'' (1990), Houghton Mifflin,
*''Certain Poor Shepherds: A Christmas Tale'' (1996), Simon & Schuster,
Critical studies and reviews of Thomas' work
*
[Review of ''The tribe of tiger''.
]
References
External links
* http://elizabethmarshallthomas.net Official Elizabeth Marshall Thomas Website
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
on Literati.net
Interview with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas on Mother Nature Network
Salon.com people , Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Socializing Humans
The tribe of tiger : cats and their culture
The social lives of dogs : the grace of canine company
{{Authority control
1931 births
Living people
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American women writers
American anthropologists
American women novelists
American women anthropologists
Animal cognition writers
Radcliffe College alumni
Smith College alumni
People from Peterborough, New Hampshire
American women non-fiction writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Abbot Academy alumni
21st-century American women