Edwardian Pets and How to Keep Them
Do you love animals and the idea of pets in your home?
This book has been, until now, unavailable online. Rather than a How-To guide, it is presented strictly as “Don’t Do This at Home!”
This annotated version provides additional information, such as a short biography and photo of the author and reference to current municipal by-laws about keeping exotic pets.
Review
This charming Edwardian e-book on pets and how to keep them, written by Frank Finn in 1907 is now wonderfully annotated with delicious historical and additional up-to-date material by editor Merridy Cox. It starts off with 'Beasts': "the advantage of keeping beasts (except, of course, bats) lies in the fact that they are incapable of flight and have dispositions more responsive to handling and caressing than most other animals". This would have certainly been a book that Downton Abbey's Lord Grantham would have consulted on matters to do with his beloved yellow lab, Isis or Mrs. Patmore on her chicken-filching cat... In reference to guinea pigs as pets, Finn tells us, "These little animals, however, in addition to their charms of colour and quaint liveliness, and eminent suitability for pets, have a positive practical utility in being good for food..." then goes on to describe how to cook them! Apparently, frying is the best!
Beasts as pets include: hedgehogs, flying foxes, meerkats, badger, mongooses, racoons, capuchins, and so many more.
In her annotations, Cox shares lively and often entertaining historical perspective on the material.
- Do you love animals and the idea of pets in your home?•This book has been, until now, unavailable online. Rather than a How-To guide, it is presented strictly as “Don’t Do This at Home!”•This annotated version is unique in providing additional information, such as a short biography and photo of the author, reference to current municipal by-laws about keeping exotic pets, and a discussion on changing scientific binomials. Further information is included periodically throughout.•This charming book, written in 1907 by ornithologist Frank Finn, includes descriptions and photographs of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish then thought suitable as pets. Many now are found only as zoo animals.•Characters in TV show Downton Abbey, season one, could have studied this book for information on the care of their menagerie.•You will like this book as an illustration of the human-animal bond, and of an historical world view of the Edwardian era in England.
•Here is Part I, Beasts, which includes monkeys, hedgehogs and otters, as well as the more common cats, dogs and rabbits, over 70 entries in all, including an active Table of Contents.
•In creating this annotated version, the editor maintained the charming character of the book by including page numbers and headers, although they are superfluous online. Also, the photographs are in their original positions in the book, including page notes beside each caption. The spelling and punctuation are original to the book.
