The Unicorn in the Garden

James Thurber’s modern fable The Unicorn in the Garden first appeared in the New Yorker on October 31, 1939. David Raksin composed a charming score for chamber orchestra and recorder for the 1953 United Productions of America film. The studio elected to recreate Thurber’s original illustration style. The Unicorn in the Garden has sparse dialogue, because Raksin tells the story with the sounds. Raksin’s score calls for a recorder to be the thematic voice for the silent unicorn. Members of the animation field voted The Unicorn in the Garden one of the fifty greatest cartoons of all time.