Animals’ Rights, Considered in Relation to Social Progress

Henry S. Salt

• Edition: First Edition
• Publisher: George Bell & Sons Ltd., London
• Published: 1892
• Length: 166 pages
• Format: Hardback
• Reprints: French, German, Dutch, Swedish and other translations

Summary

Animals’ Rights is a practical book. Initially Salt sets forth the principle of animals’ rights. He then describes the ways and means of the suffering imposed on animals as an inevitable consequence of the denial of rights. In the course of the book he refutes, often with humour, every argument advanced against animal rights in his lifetime and anticipates and refutes those still to be made. The conclusion offers guidance on “Lines of Reform” in which he explains the importance of an intellectual, literary and social crusade against the central cause of oppression: the disregard of the natural kinship between man and the animals and the consequent denial of their rights.

The 1892 edition of Salt’s classics was republished in 1980 with a preface by Peter Singer.

“A masterpiece; it remains one of the most lucid and persuasive of all the books written in defense of animals,” Keith Thomas, New York Review of Books

“‘Animals’ Rights,’ by Mr. Henry Salt, seeks to set the principle of animals’ rights on consistent and intelligible footing. Many of Mr. Salt’s pleas for humanity will win universal assent.”—The Times.

“A well-written essay in which Mr. H. S. Salt strives to put the principle of animals’ rights upon what he calls an intelligible footing.”—The Morning Post.

“A curious but cleverly-written little book which avowedly seeks to prove that the coming realization of human rights will inevitably bring in its train the tardier but not less certain realization of the rights of the lower races.”—The Speaker.

Content

• The Principle of Animals’ Rights
• The Case of Domestic Animals
• The Case of Wild Animals
• The Slaughter of Animals for Food
• Sport, or Amateur Butchery
• Murderous Millinery
• Experimental Torture
• Lines of Reform
• Bibliography of the Rights of Animals

Reviews

• Animals’ Rights Review The Vegetarian Messenger, November 1, 1892
• Animals’ Rights considered in Relation to Social Progress The Vegetarian Messenger, July 1899
• Man and the Lower Animals Royal Cornwall Gazette, December 15, 1892
• Towards Animal Rights and Moral Reform RSPCA Today, Summer 1981
• Animals’ Rights review Nature, 24 November 1892
• Animals’ Rights The Nation, July 9, 1896
• The Beast in Man The New York Review of Books, April 30, 1981
• Animals’ Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress The Philosophical Quarterly, January 1983
• Animals’ Rights Lucifer, 1892
• Crossing the Insuperable Line Times Literary Supplement, January 16, 1981
• Henry Salt and Animal Rights PAWS Animal Welfare News, Summer 1981