A-Z of Exceptional Dogs - Softcover

Mikita Brottman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007548079 ISBN 13: 9780007548071

Publisher: HARPER COLLINS, 2015

Synopsis

'Unable to love each other,' wrote writer JR Ackerley, 'the English turn naturally to dogs.' This compendium reveals that this trait is not restricted to the English, as it charts the lives of the pets of the famous, from the misanthropic philosopher Schopenhauer's poodle Atma to Catherine the Great's greyhound Zemire, via Picasso's dachshund Lump and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel Flush, whose biography was penned by Virginia Woolf. Previously published as The Great Grisby.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

A scholar, psychoanalyst, and cultural critic explores the multifaceted role dogs play in our world in this charming bestiary of dogs from literature, lore, and life.

While gradually unveiling her eight-year love affair with her French bulldog, Grisby, Mikita Brottman ruminates on the singular bond between dogs and humans. Why do prevailing attitudes warn us against loving our pet "too much"? Is her relationship with Grisby nourishing or dysfunctional, commonplace or unique? Challenging the assumption that there's something repressed and neurotic about those deeply connected to a dog, she turns her keen eye on the many ways in which dog is the mirror of man.

The Great Grisby is organized into twenty-six alphabetically arranged chapters, each devoted to a particular human-canine union drawn from history, art, philosophy, or literature. Here is Picasso's dachshund Lump; Freud's chow Yofi; Oliver Twist's Bill Sikes's mutt Bull's Eye; and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel Flush, whose biography was penned by Virginia Woolf. There are royal dogs, like Prince Albert's greyhound Eos, and dogs cherished by authors, like Thomas Hardy's fox terrier Wessex. Brottman's own beloved Grisby serves as an envoy for sniffing out these remarkable companions.

Quirky and delightful, and peppered with incisive personal reflections and black-and-white sketches portraying a different dog and its owner, The Great Grisby reveals how much dogs have to teach us about empathy, happiness, love—and what it means to be human.

About the Author:

Mikita Brottman, Ph.D, is an Oxford educated scholar, psychoanalyst, and cultural critic. She is the author of seven books, including Offensive Films and The Solitary Vice: Against Reading. She is professor of Humanistic Studies at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.

About this edition

• Publisher: HARPER COLLINS
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0007548079
• ISBN 13: 9780007548071
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288