The Crows of Pearblossom is a 1944 short story written by Aldous Huxley, the English novelist, essayist and critic. In 1967 the story was published by Random House as a children's book illustrated by Barbara Cooney. A picture book version illustrated by Sophie Blackall was published in 2011 by Abrams Books for Young Readers.
Plot
This story, written Christmas of 1944, tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Crow, who live in a cotton-wood tree at Pearblossom. Due to the Rattlesnake living at the bottom of the tree, Mrs. Crow's eggs are never able to hatch. After catching the snake eating her 297th egg that year (she does not work on Sundays), Mrs. Crow requests that Mr. Crow go into the hole and kill the snake. Thinking better of it, Mr. Crow confers with his wise friend, Mr. Owl. Mr. Owl bakes mud into two stone eggs and paints them to resemble Mrs. Crow's eggs. These dummy eggs are left in the nest to trick the Rattlesnake, who unknowingly eats them the next day. When the eggs get to his stomach, they cause the Rattlesnake such pain, that he thrashes about, tying himself in knots around the branches. Mrs. Crow goes on to hatch "four families of seventeen children each" and "uses the snake as a clothesline on which to hang the little crows' diapers."
The Snake's Poem
"I cannot fly- I have no wings;
I cannot run- I have no legs;
But I can creep where the black bird sings
And eat her speckled eggs, ha, ha,
And eat her speckled eggs."
Publisher's information
Copyright, 1967, by Random House, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-25115 The Weekly Reader Children's Book Club
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Bibliography
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| Novels |
- Crome Yellow (1921)
- Antic Hay (1923)
- Those Barren Leaves (1925)
- Point Counter Point (1928)
- Brave New World (1932)
- Eyeless in Gaza (1936)
- After Many a Summer (1939)
- Time Must Have a Stop (1944)
- Ape and Essence (1948)
- The Genius and the Goddess (1955)
- Island (1962)
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| Short story collections |
- Limbo (1920)
- Mortal Coils (1922)
- Little Mexican (1924)
- Two or Three Graces (1926)
- Brief Candles (1930)
- Collected Short Stories (1957)
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| Non-fiction |
- The Perennial Philosophy (1945)
- Grey Eminence (1941)
- The Devils of Loudun (1952)
- The Doors of Perception (1954)
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| Poetry |
- The Burning Wheel (1916)
- Jonah (1917)
- The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems (1918)
- Leda (1920)
- Arabia Infelix and Other Poems (1929)
- The Cicadas and Other Poems (1931)
- Collected Poetry (1971)
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| Travel writing |
- Along the Road (1925)
- Jesting Pilate (1926)
- Beyond the Mexique Bay (1934)
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| Essay collections |
- On the Margin (1923)
- Essays New and Old (1926)
- Proper Studies (1927)
- Do What You Will (1929)
- Music at Night (1931)
- Texts and Pretexts (1932)
- The Olive Tree (1936)
- Ends and Means (1937)
- Words and their Meanings (1940)
- Science, Liberty and Peace (1946)
- Themes and Variations (1950)
- Adonis and the Alphabet (1956) (US title:) Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
- Heaven and Hell (1956)
- Collected Essays (1958)
- Brave New World Revisited (1958)
- Literature and Science (1963)
- The Human Situation (1977)
- Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience (1999)
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| Screenplays |
- Pride and Prejudice (1940)
- Madame Curie (uncredited, 1943)
- Jane Eyre (1943)
- A Woman's Vengeance (1947)
- Alice in Wonderland (uncredited, 1951)
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| Radio script |
- "Jacob's Hands: A Fable" (1956, published 1997)
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| Plays |
- The Discovery (1924)
- The World of Light (1931)
- The Gioconda Smile (1948)
- The Genius and the Goddess (1957)
- The Ambassador of Captripedia (1965)
- Now More Than Ever (1997)
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| Other books |
- The Art of Seeing (1942)
- The Crows of Pearblossom (1944 children's book, published 1967)
- Selected Letters (2007)
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