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Bill Allen, Fables


The Unforgettables and Other True Fables

Everyone who cares deeply about pointing dogs, upland game and field trials will want copies of Bill Allen’s The Unforgettables and Other True Fables.

The collection includes the original seven Unforgettable, five later showpieces, and work never before publicly published, penned by the writer who competed in and wrote of trials in four decades, and for the American Field during the 50’s, 60’s and 70’a—a period regarded by many as the premiere years for Field Trials held on wild upland game in North America.

The Unforgettables deliver a panoramic and hilarious taste of untold yarns from Saskatchewan and Manitoba to Georgia’s live oaks, Texas’ pecan groves, Mississippi’s vast river bottoms, Illinois’ Egypt, Indiana’s Dunes and the Blue Ridge.

Allen has been called “the incomparable reporter” by his editor, Bernard Matthys. Collier Smith once said “you can smell the horse sweat and almost hear a hassling dog” when you read Bill Allen.

Funny, touching, revealing as well as daring, the prose in this volume has a style and flavor that truly cannot be imitated and never surpassed in its love and respect for what Allen calls “the forgotten little dog, so often eclipsed by human egos”.

In this volume, the author leans heavily on the feeble efforts of men to match the heroics of their canine charges. He lays bare his own ineptitude and “learning curve” along with accurate accounts of his own errors alongside the triumphs of his friends.

A fond critic once said of Allen reporting a trial that “if there was no appreciable drama, he would craft one for the report that rivaled Shakespeare, Chekhov and Arthur Miller….”

In this volume, there is mostly farce and hilarity and no dark matching of conflicting adversaries. Like Walt Kelly’s Pogo, Allen has seen the circus and it is us.

A sure to be highly collectible first edition of The Unforgettables is being offered at Presale by the publisher, Strideaway. To reserve your copy, please fill out the PDF ORDER FORM available in the right hand column of this page and send it, along with payment, to the address indicated.

Or you can also order the book online using our Secure PayPal Shopping Cart by clicking on the box that reads ORDER ONLINE. (This option will be available in a few days.)

$24.95 plus $4.95 (priority shipping)

This is a limited edition printing. PRESALE orders will be available through December 31. The book will ship in January.

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ABOUT STRIDEAWAY

Strideaway is an online publication founded in 2008. We are dedicated to promoting the great sport of American pointing dog field trials, in particular American Field sanctioned trials for pointers and setters. Our objective is to present the voices and ideas of experienced trainers, handlers, breeders and other knowledgeable participants and enthusiasts from the past to the present — amateurs and professionals alike. Whether All-Age or Shooting Dog, Horseback or Walking Trials, we place particular emphasis on wild bird field trials and the dogs that compete in them. We present richly illustrated articles and stories, podcast interviews and other types of media on a regular basis with the hope of providing an ever expanding, searchable archive of information relevant to pointing dog field trials.Read article

This website is dedicated to our ever faithful friend, Bill Allen who passed away peacefully and surrounded by his loving family on January 25, 2022 at the age of 96. We will miss him but he left us the greatest of gifts, his wonderful writings in a book we published for the 3rd time in 2021: The Unforgettables and Other True Fables.

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