August 17, 2010

LITERARY PETS

This post now resides on my other site 50 Watts:

16 comments:

  1. What a fantastic piece! Wonderful stuff. As someone who has also had wombats, I can attest to the truth of the Rosetti recollections.

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  2. Sweet.

    William Burroughs has a cat!

    My pets will always be a part of me, no matter what.

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  3. Very interesting.I liked the Lord Byron article & A Candybox of History's Sappiest Literary Lovers a must I suggest.

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  4. Fascinating! This was a wonderful article :) I had no idea that so many famous writers kept so many exotic pets--and I love the names they chose for them :D

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  5. What a wonderful article - I do love Flush....

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  6. I have always been fascinated by pets in literature and history. Fabulous article.

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  7. I'd never seen that Hemingway shot, or the Wharton one. Amazing!

    Here's a great photo of Twain with one of his kitties: http://maudnewton.com/blog/?p=9096

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  8. Thanks for all your comments.

    James, now I want a wombat!

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  9. More reason for me to finally get my peafowl.

    This will be one of the first articles I have printed out in a long, long, time. Up on the fridge it goes!

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  10. Oh, and an aside: after living around many a murder of ravens in Alaska, I can see why someone would want to have one for their own. Their SO smart, talkative (I believe they have something like almost as many vocalizations as humans do? Or something...), funny, and strange...here's an interesting link about a "raven funeral" in Fairbanks last year: http://tiny.cc/cxwvp

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  11. ditto! have personally always been very fond of Count de Montesquieu’s jewel encrusted tortoise, customized to his liking and fictionalized in Huysmans’ A Rebours.

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  12. don't forget Perec & cat!!

    http://serveur1.archive-host.com/membres/images/1878532921/sitechatsnoirs/celebrites/Georges_Perec.jpg

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  13. @disquietmuse: I think about that tortoise all the time, but didn't know it was based on de Montesquieu. Will have to pull this bio off the shelf.

    @Anonymous: thanks for that great photo. A couple days after the post went live, Gilbert discovered Jane Austen had a pet pig called Lady Ambrosia. Would have made a great addition!

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  14. A wonderful post. Rudyard Kipling's house at Batemans East Sussex has graves of several of his dogs

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  15. I think your blog is fantastic. I just linked to this post to literary pets on my blog Dog Art Today. And I signed up for your RSS feed. I will be back for more inspiration.

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