a prose or verse narrative similar to the beast fable in that it portrays animal characters acting as humans but unlike the fable in that it usually lacks a moral. Joel Chandler Harris (Harris, Joel Chandler)'s Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880) derived many episodes from beast tales carried to the United States by African slaves. Animal Farm (1945), an anti-utopian satire by George Orwell (Orwell, George), is a modern adaptation of the beast tale.