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snow_phie's review
4.0
A delightful and entertaining little book, shedding a light on how (mostly) Victorians and Georgians related to their pets. Chapters are short historical anecdotes about dogs, cats, rabbits and other pets, drawing on primary sources and featuring artwork from the period. A nice palate cleanser in between books.
alpal2020's review
5.0
Very enjoyable, and a real piece of historical research, to boot! Fun series of short stories.
annieb123's review
4.0
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 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.
jilliannewrites's review
4.0
This book was sent to me by Pen and Sword Books in exchange for an honest review.
The Pug Who Bit Napoleon: Animal Tales of the 18th & 19th Centuries by Mimi Matthews is a delightful little book that I enjoyed reading very much.
Made up of 27 short accounts of animal stories, this quick and easy read is heartwarming, funny and touching.
I’m a dog lover so the stories about canine companions were my favorites but there’s one about a goat that I loved almost as much. Cats, birds, horses and exotic pets even make the cut too.
Animals rarely make it into most standard history tomes so this collection is a really lovely and unique book.
A perfect addition to your bookshelf if you love history and animals.
The Pug Who Bit Napoleon: Animal Tales of the 18th & 19th Centuries by Mimi Matthews is a delightful little book that I enjoyed reading very much.
Made up of 27 short accounts of animal stories, this quick and easy read is heartwarming, funny and touching.
I’m a dog lover so the stories about canine companions were my favorites but there’s one about a goat that I loved almost as much. Cats, birds, horses and exotic pets even make the cut too.
Animals rarely make it into most standard history tomes so this collection is a really lovely and unique book.
A perfect addition to your bookshelf if you love history and animals.
camillalice's review
4.0
A series of stories about animals in the 18th and 19th centuries - it's pretty self-explanatory! There is a chapter on dogs, one on cats, and then several more on other animals (farm animals, reptiles, other pets, etc.).
This is a fun, quick read, and also very interesting. I didn't know a single one of these stories. Some are downright hilarious (the pug who but Napoleon for example), some are also surprising (the story of the Sailor and the Shark).
There are numerous colour illustrations of paintings of the time featuring animals, which I think was a great addition to the book. I always like a bibliography, so was pleased to see one at the end of the book. I feel like a short conclusion would have be nice instead of abruptly finishing with the last story and leaving it at that, hence my rating of 4.
Definitely recommended whether you like history or animals or even art.
Disclaimer - I received a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and Pen&Sword.
This is a fun, quick read, and also very interesting. I didn't know a single one of these stories. Some are downright hilarious (the pug who but Napoleon for example), some are also surprising (the story of the Sailor and the Shark).
There are numerous colour illustrations of paintings of the time featuring animals, which I think was a great addition to the book. I always like a bibliography, so was pleased to see one at the end of the book. I feel like a short conclusion would have be nice instead of abruptly finishing with the last story and leaving it at that, hence my rating of 4.
Definitely recommended whether you like history or animals or even art.
Disclaimer - I received a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and Pen&Sword.
lileuw's review
4.0
Really fun little book! The stories were fun and interesting and you can tell the author did their research. My only downside for this book, personally, was that there were so many individual stories of all animals, except cats, most cat stories were more about people than cats, but I did really enjoy this book and do recommend this to everyone.
The art in the book is really nice as well, some were just way too small for the pages because the art work is horizontal, instead of vertical, and they made those artworks smaller to fit the pages, makes sense, but some of the artwork loses it's beauty because of it, especially if you aren't wearing your glasses when you read this book! ;)
Note, if you just lost your pet, please stay away from this book, because there are some really sad stories in this book that would make you upset, I mean, I don't even like dogs all that much but I nearly cried about some dog stories because they were so sad! Just a slight warning about that! :)
The art in the book is really nice as well, some were just way too small for the pages because the art work is horizontal, instead of vertical, and they made those artworks smaller to fit the pages, makes sense, but some of the artwork loses it's beauty because of it, especially if you aren't wearing your glasses when you read this book! ;)
Note, if you just lost your pet, please stay away from this book, because there are some really sad stories in this book that would make you upset, I mean, I don't even like dogs all that much but I nearly cried about some dog stories because they were so sad! Just a slight warning about that! :)
natep's review
3.0
The Pug Who Bit Napoleon provides anecdotes about animals, particularly ones of historical figures. The stories themselves were generally interesting, more so when the owner was somebody well-known, like the Empress Josephine or the Hanoverians, which may make some of these stories less interesting if you do not know who these people are. These short stories (in a relatively short book) were obtained from credible sources, so they are not rumourmongering or lore. However, it seemed that some of these stories were not really too special, like the one about the cat ladies, because they were just ordinary people with no funny or intriguing new things to see. The last story about flea circuses was phenomenal, showing an unusual side to entertainment of the time and explaining it beautifully. I was also a big fan of Alexander Pope's dogs and the goat in London.
A digital copy of this book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
A digital copy of this book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review