The Otter's Story Etc.
A collection of short stories for children about animals, mainly the author's pets. The stories are about an otter, a cockatoo, a couple of chameleons, a canary and a chinchilla. The author was Dorothea (Dora) Jones, of Gwynfryn, Cardiganshire, sister of William Basil Jones, Bishop of St Davids, who wrote under the pen name of 'Gwynfryn'. She wrote mainly stories for children, which were published in periodicals such as 'Aunt Judy's Magazine', and were collected in books such as this one, and 'Friends in Fur and Feathers'.Many of the stories are located in and around her home at Gwynfryn, in the parish of Llangynfelyn, on the end of Cors Fochno (Borth Bog) in North Ceredigion.The book includes drawings of each of the animals.
Another delightful book by Dorothea Jones, aimed at entertaining and educating the Victorian child.
Don't be fooled into thinking that these are stories about cute, cuddly little bunny-wunnies who talk to children, as we seem to get in modern cartoons. Things were different in the 1880s. Children lived closer to reality (i.e. cholera, typhoid, smallpox etc). These are stories about interesting, but REAL, animals. And they end up doing what all real animals do - popping their clogs in a variety of ways. No rubbish here about buying a new hamster before the children notice the old one is stiff as a board. Here we have the otter-hounds out with the hunt...but many of them live on in a better life, stuffed and pickled!
Not recommended as bedtime stories for children of a tender disposition!
Digitised by: Nigel Callaghan, September 2006
Digitisation note: Scanned at 300dpi greyscale on Canon MP750 flatbed scanner. OCR by Finereader 7.0, un-corrected. Web images resized to jpeg at 50% quality, max dimension 900px.
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