Product Description

Did you know that Byron, upon discovering that dogs were not allowed in rooms at Cambridge, brought a pet bear instead? That Sir Isaac Newton reputedly invented the cat flap? Or that as a baby, Oliver Cromwell was kidnapped by his family's pet monkey and dragged up to the top of the roof? That on Napoleon's wedding night, Josephine's dog Fortune bit him in the bed thinking he was attacking his mistress? Or that Casanova taught his parrot to shout obscenities against a former mistress and then sold it to a market trader to embarrass her? That Freud's dog Jo-Fi would sit in on analyses and contribute to the doctor's findings? Throughout history many of our most famous and celebrated figures - great leaders, writers, artist, scientists and pioneers - have, behind closed doors, doted on and marvelled at their pets and their curious ways in the same way as the rest of us. Apart from making amusing stories in themselves, these tales often shed a uniquely personal and intriguing light on the private lives of some of the greatest pet-owning personalities in history from Alexander the Great to Beatrix Potter.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155278 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
These days dogs seem to be the latest fashion accessory for pop stars and other celebrities, but pet ownership is nothing new. Mark Twain once said, 'A home without a cat, and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat, may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how could it prove its title?' It is good to be reminded that the famous, the royal, the notorious and the artistic are devoted to their pets too, from the everyday, like Agatha Christie's beloved terriers Peter and Bingo - often used as models for dogs in her novels - to the rather more wacky such as Edith Sitwell's pet puffin with its wooden leg. Of course these pets were primarily companions and entertainers, but some can be credited with having influenced the creative processes of their artistic owners. Louis Wain only became a cat painter after being given a kitten when he was 21 and Scarlatti wrote music after hearing his cat walking over the keys on his harpsichord. Mark Bryant looks at the pets of around 400 public figures from the fourth century BC to the present day. They include film stars, novelists, politicians, composers, explorers and even fanatical dictators, all linked by their love of their pets. The anecdotes contained here also illuminate the private lives of some of the pet-owners of the past - the Roman Emperor Caligula murdered without compunction but housed his horse in a sumptuous marble stable, while Casanova taught his parrot to shout obscenities about his former mistress then sold it to the highest society bidder. This is an enjoyable and highly entertaining book. (Kirkus UK)

Factoids of varying quality-some a page long, others a sentence ("Toulouse-Lautrec kept a male canary called Lolo")-best consumed as a literary snack over a few days. Of the categories of owners (literary, royal, political, military, etc.), writers are the ones-perhaps because they wrote about them-whose pets are the most fully realized. There's Taki, the cat Raymond Chandler called his secretary because she was always there, sitting on his papers. Alexander Dumas's cat, Mysouff, once ate all the rare birds in the house with the help of the family's three tame monkeys (each named after a literary critic). Dumas wrote: "Mysouff was declared guilty, but with extenuating circumstances-merely condemned to five years of incarceration with the apes." Mark Twain, whose daughter once observed, "the difference between Mamma and Papa is that Mamma loves morals and Papa loves cats," described a kitten that liked to sit in a corner pocket of the billiard table and "[watch] the game." The poet William Cowper, who wrote "An Epitaph on a Hare," had three of those animals, which he brought into his parlor after supper to play. Royalty mostly favored dogs-George VI was responsible for introducing the now ubiquitous Welsh corgi, although Queen Victoria also had favorite horses and cats, and Frederick the Great of Prussia so loved his dogs that he wished to be buried with them, a wish granted only in 1991, after Germany's reunification. American presidents have tended to prefer a range of pets: James Garfield had a mare called Kit and a dog named Veto; Benjamin Harrison, a billy goat called Old Whiskers; and Calvin Coolidge two raccoons, Rebecca and Horace. The parrot of the title was taught by Casanova to make slanderous comments in public about a former mistress of his master. Bryant (ed., Sins of the Fathers, 1997, etc.) comes up with a few standouts, but this is mostly thin fare. Players of Trivial Pursuit, Jeopardy, etc., will enjoy. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
Mark Bryant was born in Dorset in now lives in London. He is the author of several books including Private Lives: Curious Facts about the Famous and Infamous, Dictionary of Riddles, Literary Hymns and Dictionary of 20th-Century British Cartoonists and Caricaturists. He has also compiled and edited dozens of short story and cartoon collections.