Editing Great auk (section)

====Literature and journalism====
The great auk is also present in a wide variety of other works of fiction.

In the short story ''The Harbor-Master'' by [[Robert W. Chambers]], the discovery and attempted recovery of the last known pair of great auks is central to the plot (which also involves a proto-[[Lovecraftian horror|Lovecraftian]] element of suspense). The story first appeared in ''Ainslee's Magazine'' (August 1898)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.319510007402581|hdl = 2027/umn.319510007402581|title = Ainslee's magazine. V.3 (1899)| pages=10 v }}</ref> and was slightly revised to become the first five chapters of Chambers' episodic novel ''In Search of the Unknown'', (Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, 1904).

''[[Penguin Island (novel)|Penguin Island]]'', a 1908 French satirical novel by the [[Nobel Prize]] winning author [[Anatole France]], narrates the fictional history of a great auk population that is mistakenly baptized by a [[Myopia|nearsighted]] [[missionary]].<ref>{{cite book |last=France |first=Anatole |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1930/1930-h/1930-h.htm |title=Penguin Island |publisher=Project Gutenberg |access-date=28 April 2010}}</ref>{{page needed|date=January 2025}}

In his novel ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' (1922), [[James Joyce]] mentions the bird while the novel's main character is drifting into sleep. He associates the great auk with the mythical [[Roc (mythology)|roc]] as a method of formally returning the main character to a sleepy land of fantasy and memory.<ref>{{cite book|last=Joyce|first=James|title=Ulysses|publisher=BiblioLife |location=Charleston, SC|year=2007|page=682|isbn=978-1-4346-0387-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dq2CgT4tIlsC&q=Ulysses}}</ref>

[[W. S. Merwin]] mentions the great auk in a short litany of extinct animals in his poem "For a Coming Extinction", one of the poems from his 1967 collection, "The Lice".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Merwin |title=For a Coming Extinction |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57936/for-a-coming-extinction-56d23be1c33a8 |access-date=27 March 2019 |website=Poetry Foundation|date=15 March 2019 }}</ref>

''[[Night of the Auk]]'', a 1956 Broadway drama by Arch Oboler, depicts a group of astronauts returning from the Moon to discover that a full-blown nuclear war has broken out.  Obeler draws a parallel between the anthropogenic extinction of the great auk and of the story's nuclear extinction of humankind.<ref>{{cite book |last=Oboler |first=Arch |author-link=Arch Oboler |title=Night of the Auk |publisher=Horizon Press |year=1958 |location=New York |lccn=58-13553}}</ref>

A great auk is collected by fictional naturalist [[Stephen Maturin]] in the [[Patrick O'Brian]] historical novel ''[[The Surgeon's Mate]]'' (1980). This work also details the harvesting of a colony of auks.<ref>{{cite book|last=O'Brian|first=Patrick|title=The Surgeon's Mate|publisher=W.W. Norton and Company|location=New York|year=1981|pages=84–85|isbn=0-393-30820-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=idKmOKXDoUIC&q=The+Surgeon's+Mate+Great+Auk&pg=PA84}}</ref>

[[Farley Mowat]] devotes the first section, "Spearbill", of his book ''Sea of Slaughter'' (1984) to the history of the great auk.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mowat |first=Farley |title=Sea of Slaughter |publisher=Bantam Books |year=1986 |isbn=0-553-34269-X |location=New York |page=18}}</ref>

[[Elizabeth Kolbert]]'s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, ''[[The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History]]'' (2014), includes a chapter on the great auk.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-02-10 |title=Excerpt: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History {{!}} Audubon |url=https://www.audubon.org/news/excerpt-sixth-extinction-unnatural-history |access-date=2024-11-07 |website=www.audubon.org |language=en}}</ref>

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px">
File:Geirfugl (great auk) monument.jpg|Monument on [[Reykjanes Peninsula]], [[Iceland]]
File:Awk Walk (42820792915).jpg|Monument on [[Fogo Island (Newfoundland and Labrador)|Fogo Island]], [[Canada]]
File:Great Auk monument.jpg|Monument to the last British great auk at Fowl Craig, [[Orkney]]
</gallery>