Lion Summary and Analysis

Peter Hathaway Capstick was born in 1940 and died in 1996. He was a famous hunter and author. Born in New Jersey, he attended the University of Virginia and worked on Wall Street briefly before beginning a series of hunting and travel jobs in South and Central America. Later, he traveled to Africa where he held professional hunting licenses in Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He published widely in magazines during his hunting career and, beginning in 1977, published numerous books about hunting. Capstick, a chain-smoker and heavy drinker, died from complications arising from heart bypass surgery.

Chapter 1 is the longest chapter in the text, running to nearly twice the length of the book's average. Lions are considered by Capstick and most other hunters to be the classic big game animal. The chapter relates numerous human-lion encounters ranging from the casual sighting...