Publisher Description
Flush was an English cocker spaniel who belonged to the nineteenth-century poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Virginia Woolf learned of him from the love letters Elizabeth wrote to her future husband, fellow poet Robert Browning, and found ‘the figure of their dog made me laugh so, I couldn't resist making him a Life.’ The resulting ‘biography’ combines sensuous imaginative description with sharp social comment, and brings Woolf’s unsentimental humour and insight to the fore. We see Flush as loyal confidant to Elizabeth on her sickbed at Wimpole Street, and from his jealous perspective we witness her courtship by Browning, their elopement and new life in Italy. The perfect accessible introduction to Woolf’s genius, a unique blend of fact and fiction, Flush is perhaps best read in the company of a canine companion.
This edition includes the four original illustrations by Vanessa Bell and an afterword by Margaret Forster.
Cover designed by the award-winning Finnish designer Aino-Maija Metsola
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Narrator Eileen Atkins turns in a pitch-perfect performance in this charming audio production of Woolf's biography of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel, Flush. The story uses the dog one of the most famous animals in literary history as a lens for understanding the travails of his owner, the romantic story of her courtship and marriage to Robert Browning, and the class system of mid-19th-century British society. Atkins adopts the proper tender tones in describing the blossoming relationship between Flush and Elizabeth, who feeds him delicacies from her own hand, but changes her voice to depict Flush's fury at being displaced by the interloper Robert. Atkins also beautifully captures the sense of freedom not experienced since puppyhood Flush feels when he's set loose from the confining parlors of Wimpole Street and moved to the sunbaked streets of Italy with the newlyweds.
