| Summary: | Michael Laird Rare Books description: "The History of Pompey the Little" documents the adventures of a Spaniel dog Pompey, incidentally one of the earliest non-human characters in an English novel. While moving spatially from Italy to England, from London to Bath, then to Cambridge and back to London, Pompey goes through 23 different owners. Pompey is the catalyst through which the reader travels from coffee houses to thinly veiled parlors and dining rooms of London socialites. We learn that Pompey was born in the house of a celebrated Italian courtesan; he's soon off to London, now the property of an English gentleman who prides himself on collecting elegant objects. But Pompey's owners are constantly losing him, banishing him, condemning him to death, putting him to work or selling him. His "worth" in the eyes of the world varies astonishingly. One day he's exchanged for a gold watch. Next he's swopped for a pennyworth of oysters - a telling comment on shifting values in the "new" England of the eighteenth century. Being a mere dog, Pompey can move easily through all ranks of society. By following his enforced travels, the author is able to satirize the frivolities of Women of Quality, the escapades of young lords, the harrangues of coffee-house orators and the wiles of beggars, sharpers and social climbers. "Pompey" ignited the mid-18th century boom in novels about non-human subjects, and established it as an autonomous narrative form within Britain. "Pompey" was regarded as a new and innovative genre, and was indeed distinctively different from historical prototypes; emphasizing satire, the novel creates a "hero" out of a domestic animal while blatantly ridiculing societal scandal and scurrility. The work was published anonymously Francis Coventry (1725-1753/4), an Anglican clergyman, and was dedicated to the English satirist Henry Fielding. As behoves a book which makes gossip one of its central concerns, "Pompey" quickly became the talk of the London and attracted a considerable amount of attention. Something of a bestseller, Pompey went through eight editions before 1762, including two at Dublin.
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