Bob Son of Battle

Alfred Ollivant (1874-1927) was an English novelist best known for his children's classic Bob, Son of Battle. He also wrote about a dozen other novels ranging from small-scale cautionary tales to grand historical epics. Ollivant was born in Manchester, England, in 1874 and became an author after a horse-riding injury ending his brief military career. Bob, Son of Battle, his first novel, was published in 1898. Set in rural Cumbria, in northern England, the novel centres on a suspected sheepkilling collie Bob. Even though most of the book's dialogue is written in the Cumbrian dialect, it gained a popular following in the United States. He even published a sequel, Danny, in 1903.

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"Bob, Son of Battle" is a children's classic written by English author Alfred Ollivant. It was published in 1898, and went on to become a popular children's book both in the United Kingdom and the United States.

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Two sheep farmers and their sheepdogs engage in a years-long battle to prove their superiority in handling sheep--a battle which must end in death.

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1898. Two sheep farmers and their sheepdogs engage in a years-long battle to prove their superiority in handling sheep-a battle which ultimately must end in death. The story begins: The sun stared brazenly down on a gray farmhouse lying long and low in the shadow of the Muir Pike; on the ruins of peel-tower and barmkyn, relics of the time of raids, it looked; on ranges of whitewashed outbuildings; on a goodly array of dark-thatched ricks. In the stack-year, behind the lengthy range of stables, two men were thatching. One lay sprawling on the crest of the rick, the other stood perched on a ladder at a lower level.