Lassie Come-Home

Lassie Come-Home is a novel written by Eric Knight about a rough collie’s trek over many miles to be reunited with the boy she loves.[1] Author Eric Knight introduced the reading public to the canine character of Lassie in a magazine story published on December 17, 1938, in The Saturday Evening Post, a story which he later expanded to a novel and published in 1940 to critical and commercial success. In 1943, the novel was adapted to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature film Lassie Come Home starring Roddy McDowall as the boy Joe Carraclough, Pal as Lassie, and featuring Elizabeth Taylor.[2] The motion picture was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry. A remake of Lassie Come Home, entitled Lassie, was released in 2005.

For the film adaptation, see Lassie Come Home.
Lassie Come-Home
First edition
AuthorEric Knight
IllustratorMarguerite Kirmse
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
PublisherThe John C. Winston Company
Publication date
1940
Media typePrint

The hyphen in the title refers to Lassie allegedly being a “come-home” dog. A cynical character falsely accuses the Carraclough family of training such dogs for fraud: “[I] know all about yer and yer come-home dogs. Training ’em to break loose and run right back ’ome when they’re sold, so then ye can sell ’em to someone else.”[3] Thus, “Lassie Come-Home” should not be construed as an imperative phrase, but as anastrophe (the inversion of normal syntax, as in “enemy mine” or “riches untold”). Film adaptations of the novel do not include the hyphen.

Reception

Lassie Come-Home won the 1943 Young Reader's Choice Award.[4]

References
  1. Publishers Weekly
  2. The New York Times
  3. Eric Knight (1940). Lassie Come-Home. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. p. 30.
  4. "Past winners". Young Reader's Choice Awards. Archived from the original on 29 October 2012. Retrieved 25 November 2012.
Awards
Preceded by
By the Shores of Silver Lake		 Young Reader's Choice Award recipient
1943		 Succeeded by
The Black Stallion
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