annieb123's Review of The Pug Who Bit Napoleon

by Mimi Matthews

From elaborate Victorian cat funerals to a Regency era pony who took a ride in a hot air balloon, Mimi Matthews shares some of the quirkiest and most poignant animal tales of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Meet Fortune, the Pug who bit Napoleon on his wedding night, and Looty, the Pekingese sleeve dog who was presented to Queen Victoria after the 1860 sacking of the Summer Palace in Peking. The four-legged friends of Lord Byron, Emily Bront , and Prince Albert also make an appearance, as do the treasured pets of Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, and Charles Dickens. Less famous, but no less fascinating, are the animals that were the subject of historical lawsuits, scandals, and public curiosity. There s Tuppy, the purloined pet donkey; Biddy, the regimental chicken; and Barnaby and Burgho, the bloodhounds hired to hunt Jack the Ripper. Wild animals also get a mention in tales that encompass everything from field mice and foxes to alligators and sharks lurking in the Thames. Using research from eighteenth and nineteenth century books, letters, and newspapers, Mimi Matthews brings each animal s unique history to vivid life.
The details are sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, but the stories are never anything less than fascinating reading for animal lovers of all ages.

First published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Pug Who Bit Napoleon is a collection of anecdotes and lore about animals and their humans in the 1700-1800's. Many of them encountered (or occasionally bit) famous people, were immortalized by poets or artists or otherwise found their ways into the annals of history.

The book has a chapter/story format with different animals separated into different categories. There are categories for dogs and cats of course, but also for farm animals, birds, rodents (and rabbits), reptiles and fish and a couple of stories about exotic animals (foxes) and a final weirdly endearing chapter about flea circuses of the Victorian era (odd and silly in about equal measures).

The book is lavishly illustrated with beautiful paintings and illustrations from the period. The stories themselves are well written and (mostly) historically sound, and when there are discrepancies, they're clearly noted. The book also includes a useful index and a sources list as well as a bibliography which provides a good resource list for further reading.

I enjoyed this book a lot and found the author's informal style both accessible and fun to read.

Stats: The Pug Who Bit Napoleon; Animal Tales of the 18th&19th Centuries
192 pages, Kindle & Paperback format,
Anticipated pub. date: 30 Nov 2017
Author: Mimi Matthews
Publisher: Pen & Sword UK

Four stars

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.

The Pug Who Bit Napoleon

by Mimi Matthews

Reviewed by annieb123 on Nov 3, 2017

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