Mikita Brottman, PhD, is an Oxford-educated scholar, critic, and psychoanalyst. Her new book is The Great Grisby: Two Thousand Years of Literary, Royal, Philosophical, and Artistic Dog Lovers and Their Exceptional Animals.One of her top ten literary canines, as shared at the Guardian:
Bull's Eye is the ill-used mutt, often assumed to be a bull terrier, belonging to Bill Sikes, the vicious thug in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. In the novel, no breed is mentioned;Read about another dog on the list.Bull's Eye is described as "a white shaggy dog, with his face scratched and torn in 20 places". Man and dog are bound together, both victims of a cruel upbringing, both unpredictably violent. The two brutes share more than similar- sounding names; ; … Bull's Eye has "faults of temper in common with his owner". Yet they are inseparable, and Bull's Eye, who sleeps at Sikes's feet or by his side, is always ready to obey his master.
Oliver Twist is among Mal Peet's top ten list of books that his children liked to have read to them and that he liked reading, and John Mullan's ten best handkerchiefs in literature; it is one of John Inverdale's six best books.
Also see Cliff McNish's top ten dogs in children's books; Becky Ferreira's 11 best books about dogs; and Ben Frederick's eleven essential books for dog lovers.
--Marshal Zeringue
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