Reigning Cats and Dogs: A History of Pets at Court Since the Renaissance - Couverture rigide

MacDonogh, Katharine

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1857025954 ISBN 13 : 9781857025958

Editeur : 4th Estate, 1999

Synopsis

A history of royalty seen from floor level: the untold story of royal pets throughout the ages.

Katharine MacDonogh has discovered a wealth of untapped historical material in this important and original study of royal obsession.

The Maharajah of Junagadh spent £22,000 in the 1920s on the marriage of his favourite dog Roshanara to a golden retriever called Bobby. Our own Queen Mother has a particular dislike of pugs, perhaps not coincidentally the favoured dog of Mrs Simpson. The Empress Josephine’s pugs slept near her on cashmere shawls.

After her coronation, Queen Victoria hurried home, removed her state robes and gave her dog Dash a bath. Her own grand-daughter had the combings from a brown poodle knitted into a large shawl. The first ‘dorgis’ are the result of cross-breeding one of the Queen’s corgis, Tiny, with Princess Margaret’s dachshund, Pipkin.

This revealing and bizarre history is lavishly illustrated throughout in colour and black and white.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

After graduating in Modern History from Sommervile College, Oxford, in 1975, Katharine MacDonogh spent several years in Paris as a translator and editor. She has written for ‘History Today’ and reviews for the ‘Literary Review’, the ‘Evening Standard’ and the quarterly journal ‘French History’. A fellow of the International Napoleonie Society, she is currently writing a book on Napoleon’s escape from Elba.

À propos de la quatrième de couverture

When the Dowager Empress of China died in 1908, her favourite Pekingese was led before her coffin by the chief eunuch, following a precedent of some nine hundred years' standing. Queen Victoria, entertaining Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie at Windsor, regarded a visit to the kennels as the high point of an afternoon's walk. And contemporary chroniclers of the French Revolution rather implausibly claimed that Marie Antoinette's dog, Thisbee, was so distraught at the queen's incarceration that it committed suicide.

For monarchs and their consorts, cats, dogs and the occasional parrot acted as constant companions, unquestioning allies, surrogate children and silent repositories of whispered confidences. For their isolated children, cats and dogs were often the only source of emotional comfort and warmth. From Empress Josephine's collection of pugs (who had their own personal maid in spite of Napoleon's distaste for them) to Elizabeth II's dynasty of corgis, the history of these pampered pets offers us a fascinating and often hilarious peek into the exalted world of their owners.

Using a rich source of previously untapped historical documentation, Katharine MacDonogh has written a revelatory account – seen from floor level – of court life since the Renaissance.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: 4th Estate
• Date d'édition: 1999
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1857025954
• ISBN 13: 9781857025958
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 304
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible