| Item Description: | With an engraved title-vignette, 8 woodcut headpieces, and one engraved tailpiece (Murner's urn).
Michael Laird, bookseller, description: This amazing work concerns the failure to properly inter the corpse of a cat (named "Murner" in the German). Disguised as a Gothic tale, the work evidences real problems of the disposal of animal remains in the mid to late 18th-century; moreover, it illustrates the degree to which domesticated animals were seen as worthy of proper burial. "Murner in Hell" is a highly curious poem in heroic hexameter which relates the story of Murner the Ghost Kitty, who having been killed whilst attacking a caged canary haunts his owners for failing to properly inter his corpse. "Murner in Hell" has nothing to do with Thomas Murner (1475-ca. 1537) but is a travesty on Book XI of the Odyssey, in which Elpenor pleads for Odysseus to bury his body. In the present Gothic Tale, Murner the cat haunts the whole house until his corpse is buried. |
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