Looking backward ...

It's been a marvelous ride -- as full of twists and turns as Toby's tail -- but at last the Author must take leave of his blog, and move forward into new stories and fresh undertakings. Toby's latest sojourn in Italy, continues apace, helped by some very positive notices in the Press, especially from Pietro Citati, whose extraordinarily generous and appreciative review was far more gratifying than any Author has a right to hope for. The editions in Sweden and Turkey have also been very kindly received, and the book continues in print there, as well as in the U.K., U.S., and Canada. For further news, please visit my main page, where you can find out about my current and future books and other projects. Along with Toby, I want now mainly to express my thanks, to the many faithful Readers who have made this journey such a pleasure, along with the hope that, should they at some future date re-read his book, their enjoyment will be at least as great.

Toby in Italian

Later this month, the Italian publisher Einaudi will release their new edition of Pyg, as translated by Carla Palmieri. I was delighted to see that they retained the essential design of the original Canongate hardcover edition, with a few subtle changes -- of course, since the letters PYG don't work as a double-entendre in Italian, they (as did the Swedish publishers) changed it to TOBY. I was also pleased to see that the translator chose 'sapiente,' with its period connotations and Latin roots, and (just for fun) they added my PhD. after my name. My Italian being very limited, I can't really assess the book myself, though I hope to pass copies along to friends who are fluent/native speakers, and will look forward to their reaction. Many authors seem to me unexcited about their translations, but for me there could be no greater pleasure -- the translator, after all, has the unique task of ferrying meaning from the shores of one language to another (both ferry and translate share a root in the Latin fero/tuli/latus), and there is no other reader -- not even myself -- who has more carefully parsed out the various shades and shadows of meaning than a translator. I also love to think on how an edition in another language is, in a sense, entirely new -- and how it will garner the attention of an entirely new set of readers, readers with whom I would otherwise be powerless to communicate in their native tongue. And as to Italian -- which I'll always think of as the language of Dante -- I can't imagine a more fortuitous and fruitful shore upon which to arrive.

A Learned Pig in Cleveland

I've known for some time that a Learned Pig once graced my home town of Cleveland, Ohio -- albeit more than a century before I had the fortune to be born there -- but only recently was able to track down the particulars, in the form of this advertisement which appeared in the Sandusky Register for 10 April, 1849. This is apparently the very same pig that had appeared a few weeks earlier in Cleveland, and which arrived after a delay explained thusly by its proprietor in a letter in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which that paper quoted verbatim:

"I Do inform yo that the pig Will not stop With you, for some monce ago She got out, and now is hevy and Cannot perform Well till after a few Dais, and thare Was a mistake in the man that advertises for us Which We did not mean to have him come so far West."

On hearing that this same pig would soon be appearing in Sandusky, the editor of the Register, noting the writer's numerous errors of spelling and grammar, declared that "judging from the letter, if the pig is not more 'learned' than his master, he is no great shakes." It seems that the pig's proprietor took this criticism to heart, purchasing a large display advertisement, and perhaps paying someone at the Register to write the copy -- for it's reasonably well-written and error-free.

When in Cleveland, the pig appeared at a tavern near Doan's Corners, later the intersection of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue, and a well-known area for movies and entertainment until the neighborhood hit the skids in the 1950's; the site is now completely overtaken by the "campus" of the Cleveland Clinic. The Sandusky appearance was at the North American House, a hotel which stood on the site until 1926; fittingly enough, it is now the site of the Board of Education for Sandusky City Schools.

Spine Design

We've long been enjoined not to judge a book by its cover, but what about its spine?  Years ago, when I worked as a books clerk at the old Yale Co-Op bookstore, featured books were always turned "face out" to show the front cover to advantage.  And yet, even when denied the privilege of showing their fronts, books -- physical ones, at any rate -- have always had a secret weapon: their spines.  And, when a book is purchased, brought home, and read, I'd venture to say that very few of us, especially those whose shelves are already full to bursting, have the luxury to place any of our cherished volumes face out -- and thus, it's usually by their spines that we know them.



I got to thinking of this after Penguin Books sent me an image of the spine for the US edition of PYG. I love the dramatic background of scarlet, over which my name and the title are further framed by lovely golden side-squggles.  It's the kind of thing that, or so I hope, will tempt those who still love to browse in person to lift the book from the shelf to see what  more it has in store.  And, with my thoughts thus turned in a lateral direction, I go to thinking about spines, and how seldom most of us ponder the creative space, narrow though it sometimes be, of their invitation.  The best of them seem to say "pull me out!" "read me!" -- though at times, if they are wider than usual, they may loom more ominously, daring us to find the time to peruse their many pages. 


In the early nineteenth century, books were often sold without bound covers, with the assumption that their owners, reasonably well-heeled, would have them bound to their own library's design, which meant row after row of matching leather spines. I've seen one such collection, in a room hidden deep within the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, where an enormous private library, ranging in size from duodecimo to double-elephant Imperial Folio, still resides inside its original leather cases, and original cabinets as well (this room was also the site of Shauna McMullen's recent "blue spine" installation).  Yet for most of us, this is a sight we'll seldom see, unless we're especially fond of bound sets, such as the Library of America or the Harvard Classics.  No, our shelves are mostly a motley of colors, with white and green and crimson and brown bands of color jostling for our attention.



I've picked out a few of my favorites from my own collection, and put them in a Flickr album, and I'd invite any others who, along the edges of their shelves, have a few which somehow leap into mind, or into hand, to do the same.  After all, in the long time that often passes between first and next readings, it's often the only way we see our old friends, their faces hidden and pressed to each others' rear covers -- by that band of identity which, figuratively and literally, binds them all together.

Bugs' Lives

While there are plenty of novels and films told from the viewpoint of an animal, the notion of an insect's perspective been an element in horror novels and films far more often than in literary fiction. For, it seems, there is something intrinsically horrible about being an insect; one thinks at once of the unfortunate Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis, or of the face of Vincent Price on the body of a fly trapped in a spider's web, plaintively calling "Help me! Help me!" (while, back at the lab, as shown here, his body now sports the fly's head and arm).

But perhaps a fly's eye point of view is not necessarily so grim -- after all, we've all probably used the phrase 'fly on the wall' to describe that view of human business which observes, without participating, things hidden to others. Making this metaphor literal is certainly a curious choice, but not unheard of -- Emily Dickinson managed it in "Bee! I'm expecting you!", and Patrick McGrath, perhaps best known for his novel Spider (made into a film by David Cronenberg who, coincidentally, also did a remake of The Fly) employed a fly as narrator in his 1988 short story "The E(rot)ic Potato," (collected in Blood and Water).

But now, with Rebecca Miller's delightful Jacob's Folly, we finally have a full-fledged fly narrator, one whose wry perspective on the ways of humans is made the more piquant by, in the first instance, his being a reincarnation of an eighteenth-century Parisian peddler, and in the second, by the delicately gradual manner in which he becomes aware of his true nature, with all its gifts and limitations. Indeed at first, our narrator -- Jacob by name -- believes himself to be an angel:

"I beat the wings I didn't know I had, and rose. I could fly! Was I dreaming? The black air was surprisingly viscous. My wings outstretched, I let myself descend, circling slowly through the thick stuff, passing through roiling, wispy clouds that felt cool on my skin. I was definitely awake. Could I be an angel? Euphoria and disbelief gathered in me. I reveled at having been chosen, against all odds to be part of the heavenly host."

Jacob soon discovers that he is, on the whole, rather small for an angel, but also finds that his tiny size and ability to go unnoticed give him a singular perspective on the humans he discovers in twenty-first century Long Island. Indeed, to be noticed is his only peril -- since for humans, there is only one reason to notice a fly, which is to swat it, then mutter an exclamation of satisfaction at its demise.

As the novel progresses, we learn something of Jacob's original life, of his humble beginnings and the strange fortune that put him, a poor Jew, in dangerous proximity to one of the wealthiest men of his time. Indeed, for me, Jacob's life and adventures were at times more engaging than the relatively tawdry doings of the modern family whose lives he observes. Perhaps that's because, as one who has spent so much time imagining the eighteenth century for my own non-human protagonist, I feel more at home there -- or perhaps both feelings stem from my dislike of the present moment, which first drove me to read, and later to write, historical fiction. Few people, I suppose, find their own time as interesting as times gone by; like Marion Cotillard's 'Adriana' in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, the moveable feast of 1930's Paris bores us because we're in it, and we must ever seek some further-back 'belle époque.'

Still, Jacob's hovering grace casts at least a bit of magic on the daily doings of his human 'hosts' -- we are often reminded of just how peculiar our contemporary lives might seem to a visitor from a distant time, and so of how peculiar they in fact are. We may not believe in reincarnation -- or, if we do, we might regard the life of a fly as punishment for some past misdeed -- but here, oddly enough, it seems to be a strange kind of reward, as is the experience of reading Jacob's Folly.

Miller's novel came out a few months ago here in the U.S. -- and I was delighted to discover that its UK publisher is the same as my own, Canongate. Readers there -- at least those who resisted ordering a copy from abroad -- are in for a treat, as it's just been published there today.

On the Perils of Animal Narrators

On the face of it, the idea of an animal narrator is just as sensible as a human one, and rather more attractive. One of our earliest conceits as children, and one which we might do well to cling to longer, is that everything around us is alive and sentient, and animals are more inviting-- more 'on our level' -- than adults: they are closer to our size, more affectionate,  more loyal, and cuter. As a result, in books supposedly meant for children, animals talk all the time: we have Babar the Elephant, Curious George the monkey (who though he doesn't talk, is certainly the protagonist of his stories), Pooh, Piglet, and the other denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood, and many more. Somewhere around adolescence, we are meant to put away these childish things; if we persist in wanting imaginative stories set in a world other than our own, we generally have to accept that they will be populated with humans or human-like characters, and animals will be downgraded to sidekick status. By adulthood, if we persist in our folly, we are generally forced to go back and read the books we grew up with; who, after all, writes adult fiction with animal narrators?

Well, quite a few people in fact, among them Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Richard Adams, Paul Auster, and Andrew O'Hagan. Sometimes, it's a sly allegorical conceit, as with Orwell, or sly biography as with Woolf, who in Flush set out the write the life story of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's pet spaniel. These animals, endearing though they be, are mainly figures of the human world, anthropomorphized with a particular purpose in mind. But to me, the more interesting question is, what would animals say on their own, had the but the chance and the means with which to produce speech?

There have been a number of books that have gone just a bit further in imagining the animal perspective on humans, rather than the other way about. I remember reading Watership Down as a teen, and loving the way rabbits had their own language, and their own notion of humans; their word for automobile, hrududu, still slips from my tongue when I'm nearly run over by one. A similarly effective tone can be found in the feral cats of Erin Hunter's Warriors series, the first few of which (at least) are wonderfully imagined, complete with the cats' maps of their world and the human incursions within it. These are, of course, intended for younger readers, which means they can't really be on our list of ostensibly adult fiction (though of course adults may read them).

So what have we? Well, for starters, there's Sam Savage's Firmin, a delightful tale of a book-eating rat who nibbles his way into a wry consciousness of the human world. Firmin, in fact, is a sort of nebbishly self-deprecating figure, which of course makes him all the more endearing as he struggles to find a niche in a world where all of his heroes -- and villains -- are of human form. Along quite different lines, we also have Cornelius Medvei's Mr. Thundermug, a curious tale of a baboon who moves his family into an abandoned home in an unnamed city, and has a series of droll and dryly-recounted adventures, many of which consist of his struggles with human authorities, who first demand that he send his offspring to school, and then that he remove them. Alas, no one else in Mr. Thundermug's family has the gift of language, and on his departure, he still seems a lonely soul, and one we have scarcely gotten to know.

There are a few other animal narrators who are based upon actual animals, and these offer some promise. Marilyn Monroe's dog "Maf" (short for 'Mafia Honey' -- he was a gift from Frank Sinatra) is given Shandyesque voice by Andrew O'Hagan in The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe. Maf he turns out to be quite the talker; O'Hagan gives him free leash to speak his mind, and the result is strangely compelling, something that feels much closer to an articulated version of an observant dog's view of his humans than most other such tales. Other cases are not quite so strong; although it's fine that someone decided to write the autobiography of Sir Ernest Shackleton's cat, the far-faring Mrs. Chippy, the resulting book is, I fear, a one-off that's far too clever for its own good.

And there are more such books, with new ones appearing every day; Howard Anderson's Albert of Adelaide, a tale of a Platypus out of water in the Australian outback, looks promising (I've just started reading it). And then there's Nilanjana Roy's The Wildings, not yet available in the US, which pits feral cats against still-more-feral cats in a far darker and more disturbing imagination of a scenario similar to that of the Erin Hunter books. Another book on my to-read list is Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story, by Leonie Swann, in which the detectives themselves are sheep. I am sure there will be more such books -- many more -- and there's one thing you have to admit: no matter how many, it will be a very long time before human beings receive their due comeuppance.

Friends of Toby: Robert Burns

Among all the noted figures of his day encountered by Toby, none left a more vivid impression than the poet Robert Burns. We know both from Toby's memoirs and from Burns's own letters that the two met during Toby's final fortnight of performances at the Grassmarket in Edinburgh, which Burns attended. I'll let Toby describe the scene himself:

A few days into our run, I received a singular Visitor, a man whose star was just then most Ascendant in the sky: Robert Burns, the Ayrshire ploughman-turned-poet. He arrived in fine fettle, in the company of Mr Creech, a local bookseller who had just then undertaken to publish a new edition of his Poems, along with a large gaggle of miscellaneous Followers, whose exact connection with the Poet was hard to Ascertain. They made, never the less, for a most colourful audience, and Sam at once arranged for them to be seated together, and issued tickets gratis, which would have offended those yet waiting to attend had it been any other person but Burns. The great poet himself, remarkably, seemed unaffected by this adulation: he retained a sturdy rustic dignity which seemed to regard all Praise as superfluous; his countenance possessed at all times a constant, even Temperament, and it was only in his eyes that there glimmered—or so I thought—an intensity of Feeling that belied his modest appearance and calm comportment. Truly, I have never beheld a pair of eyes such as those, before or since, and when—at the conclusion of my performance— we were introduced, I felt myself quite under their spell. We exchanged only bows and polite glances, but I am sure I was not alone in sensing a strange feeling of kinship between us, these two simple Country creatures whose capacity for Language was similarly made out to be some remarkable Spectacle, eliciting adulation that would somehow be lessened had we both been born not sons of Toil but to a gentler class.

Toby apparently left an impression on Burns as well; in an anecdote related by several of Burns's biographers, he was at that time invited to a soirée by an unnamed noblewoman; feeling that the invitation was merely made because he was considered, like Toby, a "curiosity," he made the following reply: "Mr Burns will do himself the honour of waiting upon her on the ninth inst., provided Her Ladyship will also invite the Learned Pig." This could be taken, perhaps, as reflecting poorly on our porcine protagonist, but Toby declared himself pleased by the reference:

This has, since then, been interpreted as far from complimentary, by a great many ignorant and idle commentators who have supposed that for Burns to compare himself to Me was a reflection of a perceived insult, rather than—as I am sure it was meant—a most generous avowal of our abiding sense of kinship. Poor Burns: though the span of life granted Man is (generally) many times that allotted to Pigs, he had scarce another nine years of life, while I have lived to mourn his death, and regret the brevity, though not the brilliance, of his poetic Career.

Alas, it was true: Burns died on 21 July 1796, at the age of thirty-seven, while Toby lived, as far as I his editor have been able to ascertain, at least to 1809 or thereabouts. Today, on the 257th anniversary of Burns's birth, let us remember them both with gratitude for the remarkable works they left behind.

Dan Rice and the Learned Pig

One of the most successful comic performers of his day, Dan Rice (1823-1900) was known for his dialect humor, his parodic takes on famous plays such as "Dan Rice's Multifarious Account of Shakespeare's Hamlet," and his mock political speeches; one of these, his striped costume and top hat may have played a part in popular depictions of "Uncle Sam." And, back in the early 1840's, Rice's very first strides upon the proverbial boards of the public stage were made in the company of a Learned Pig.

This pig, originally named "Sibyl," was re-christened by Rice with  the more impressive "Lord Byron," and exhibited from town to town, most often in taverns or public houses. Rice was astute at drumming up publicity for these appearances, and once took out an advertisement in poetic form in the Washington Commonwealth:

I've seen the Learned Pig. 'Tis queer 

To see a hog become a seer.

He knows his letters, and can hunt

The alphabet without a grunt;

Can add, subtract, and knows the rule

As well as any boy in school;

By working with his head and snout

He finds the truth without a doubt.

'Tis wondrous how a brute so low

Was taught by man so much to know!

Dan Rice's pig already had a history of its own; originally the joint property of one Mr. Osborne of Cazenovia NY and C.L. Kise, described as an "ingenious Connecticut Yankee." Kise was an old hand at exhibiting oddities, and is best known for his exhibition of Joyce Heth, said to be George Washington's nurse, and later shown to great effect by Phineas T. Barnum.  Rice bought out Osborne's half of the learned pig act, and enjoyed tremendous success with it. His pig was especially known for its card-playing acumen,  often beating human opponents, as well as his fortune-telling skills, along with comic revelations such as "who is the greatest rogue in the room?" Rice was said to dress Lord Byron in a somewhat clownish outfit, "trimmed with parti-colored ribbons, and so cleanly and tidy did he appear after a toilet as carefully prepared as the most pampered lapdog from its interested mistress." And indeed, Rice later trained up a dog with all the same skills that the pig had once demonstrated. By Rice's own account, his signals to the pig were made by clicking together his finger and thumbnail, producing a noise inaudible to audiences, but heard clearly by the pig, whom Rice declared possessed "extreme acuteness of hearing."

Toby in Turkish

Toby's progress around the world takes a new and delightful turn this week with his appearance in a Turkish translation published by Ithaki, which debuts today at the Istanbul Book Fair. I feel honored to be in the company of many of the authors whose works have been translated and published in Turkey by Ithaki; it includes literary lights from Orwell to Woolf, and fantasists from Verne to Bradbury to Tolkien. The translator of PYG, İnci Katırcı, has also translated Daniel Willingham's Why Children Don't Like School and Jonathan Santlofer's Anatomy of Fear. They've done a great job with the cover as well, even providing Toby with a miniature academic mortarboard, along with a gown that has his name embroidered on the lower part!  

Ithaki is also a very brave and persevering publisher; modern-day Turkey does not always enjoy the same breadth of press freedoms as are found in the United States and the EU, and its offices have been raided in search of manuscripts that the government and the police wanted to suppress, an action condemned by the Turkish Writers Union.  I am enormously pleased that they've become Toby's publishers, and wish their new edition all the best.

And Toby's journey is not over yet -- next year, he'll be appearing in Italian courtesy of Einaudi -- I can't wait to see how they translate and design the book! -- they are also the publishers of Sam Savage's tale of a book-devouring rat, Firmin (or Firmino as he is known there), so I feel confident they'll do a great job of bringing PYG to Italian readers.

The Learned Pig on Stage

Almost from the start, the exploits of the Learned Pig were annexed to the stage, both in song and deed.  One of the very first Pigs, possibly our Toby himself, was so lauded for his act at Charing Cross that he became the subject of a popular tune, shown here illustrated with a woodcut, singing his praises:

In this wonderful Age 
Such strange subjects arise.
To call our Attention, amuse and surprise !

A few years later, in 1795, another comic song -- or, possibly the same one -- was sung at a Boston theatre, following the plays "The Wonder" and "The Farmer," featuring Mr. Jones as "Jeremy Jumps, in which character he will introduce the satirical song of the LEARNED PIG," following which, costumed as a wingèd Mercury, he would "fly from the back of the stage to the extremity of the gallery, and back again." One wonders if the pig flew with him.

And today, I'm happy to note, the Learned Pig is making a sort of theatrical comeback.  It began with Daniel Freedman's 2011 musical "The Incredible Adventures of Toby the Learned Pig," which débuted at the Wonderland One Act Festival on 42nd Street in New York; songs for this play included "London Town" "Swine," and "The Cat's Opera," and all can be heard and downloaded from Mr. Freedman's MySpace page. And, in 2013, it will continue when the Fittings company of Manchester presents "Edmund, the Learned Pig" at the Royal Exchange Theatre, with music by the Tiger Lillies' Martyn Jacques and a script by Mike Kenny, best known for his stage adaptations of Edith Nesbit's Railway Children. It's to be based on the Tiger Lilies' song, which in turn was inspired by the late Edward Gorey; you can hear the original version here. It only seems fitting that, as Toby himself was born in Salford, that the return to stage of pig who can spell should take place in Manchester.

Learned Pigs in Alexandria

Having understood, through the kindness of the proprietors of Gadsby's Tavern and Museum, that there was a tradition of there having been a learned Pig at their establishment, I set in to searching the newspapers of the 1790's and early 1800's for any evidence I could find. And, although I have not yet located a Pig of these talents at Gadsby's, I have found one who appeared at Charles McKnight's Eagle Tavern, at the corner of King and Royal streets, on Febuary 24th 1801. The language is much that that in Mr. Pinchbeck's notices, but his name is not mentioned. Among Mr. McKnight's other entertainments over the years was one "infant Roscius" (buzz buzz!) who "will deliver in character a great variety of pieces from the British classics."

There is a second, much longer notice, also in the Alexandria Advertiser, from June 27th of that same year, but this seems to be just a reprint of an account from Hudson, New York. The next local notice is for "The Learned Pig -- Now grown to be the Wonderful Hog," who appeared at Mr. John Bogan's, Spring-Garden, on December 11th 1806.  And yet, alas, nothing for Mr. Gadsby; his only animal-related notices are from a series of 1797 ones for stray animals: "THREE COWS, Strayed or Stolen, marked as follows ... whoever will bring the above Cows to the City Tavern, Alexandria, shall receive eight dollars Reward, and all reasonable charges."  All of which is not to say that Mr GADSBY did not possess a Learned Pig, only that if he did, he does not appear to have placed a notice in the Advertiser.  Never the less, the list of Sapient Pigs displayed up and down the eastern coasts from Savannah to Newburyport between 1797 and 1806 is enormous; I've given some account of them in this post on Mr. J.L. Bell's excellent Boston 1775 blog, and I plan to survey the subject at far greater length in my Lecture to be given on the 20th inst. at the Gadsby Tavern and Museum in Alexandria, to which I would warmly invite any who are Curious as to these particular Pigs --or others -- to attend.

On the naming of Pigs

Reading a recent item in the New York Times about the use of gestation crates for pigs in factory farms.  The crates themselves are bad enough, of course -- but what struck me was the reference to "Sow 44733." Such a name, and the inference that 44,732 sows must have come before it (and any imaginable number after it), called immediately to mind a passage from PYG:

"With some animals—horses, mostly—it has been the habit of Men to name, and keep some account of, a creature’s dam and sire, if only to make a sort of Mathematics of success; a good dam might be joined with a famous sire to make another Champion to win the garland at the next St. Leger stakes. But when it comes to Pigs, men have long felt that there was little sense in naming them, as their only moment of Note was most commonly their being served for Supper, and found more flavourful or delicate than their predecessor—every one of them nameless save by such Ephemeral sobriquets as Loin or Roast. in such a realm of infinite and infinitely replaceable Parts, a row of dinners one after another, the idea of naming any one such meal appeared as absurd as naming a toenail-clipping, or a Fart." 

When we peruse various cuts of ham and bacon at the supermarket, I doubt that any of us really grasps the enormity, the industrial vastness, that the factory farming of pigs constitutes. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that in 2002 that there were more than 939 million pigs on the planet, with 59 million in the United States alone, the majority in large factory farms. Whatever their conditions -- and it's hard to imagine how such large operations could possibly be very "humane" in the broader sense -- that's an enormous number.  But of course, by the time the products of this industry have reached our tables, they've been conveniently slaughtered, smoked, shrink-wrapped, and refrigerated, such that they seem more a thing than a creature. And that, alas, is simply a modern, streamlined version of the version of the exact same state of affairs described by Toby, two hundred and thirty years ago.

I don't necessarily endorse any one response to these issues, but I'd direct anyone concerned about them to organizations such as Pig Business (UK), Farm Sanctuary (US) or the Humane Society -- or, if the charms of pork prove irresistible, to the Certified Humane or Sustainable Table sites.

William Bentley and the Learned Pig

The Reverend William Bentley of Salem, Massachusetts, was much loved by his parishioners for his kindly disposition, his emphasis of good works over theological conformity, and his enthusiasm for education. A graduate of Harvard, he was a lively lifelong learner and teacher; it was said that he spoke 21 languages,  seven of them fluently, and his personal library was one of the finest in New England.  At the same time, he lived quite humbly, residing for nearly his entire career in rented rooms at what's now known as the Crowninshield-Bentley House in Salem for most of his ministry, which has just recently been restored by the Peabody-Essex Museum, and opened for historical tours).

He was also a diarist, called by some an "American Pepys," and with good reason: his daily journal eventually filled 32 volumes.  And it's there, in a series of entries from 1798, that we learn of his encounter with the Learned Pig.  Visiting Boston in March of that year, he went to see the sapient swine in its rooms below Bowen's Museum, and he seems to have formed a favorable impression:

I went to Boston to attend a Committee of the Grand Lodge. Upon my arrival & for a moment's amusement I visited the Learned Pig & the exhibition greatly exceeded my expectations. It was taught to discover the cards, to assort the letters of words, & to bring numbers for any purpose. I afterwards visited Bowen's Museum & tho' the arrangement by no means met my wishes, yet I could select many things to give me pleasure. The wax work is extensive, but I can pronounce nothing. The tapestry obliged my attention. The painting "Death of Lewis," from which the wax work of the same event is taken, was good, but the resignation of Washington interested me. There are many portraits which are interesting. The musical clocks discover ingenious mechanisms but the notes of the clock discribing the Organ & Claronets were captivating. In the menagery was a bear sleeping & slumbering with an insolent contempt of every visitor. A Babboon, more fond of entertaining his guests, an affronted porcupine, & two owls who gave us no share of their notice.

And, as it happens, not long after the Rev. Bentley's return to Salem, this pig -- who was in fact William Pinchbeck's original "Pig of Knowledge"-- followed him there.  The good reverend did not, so far as his diary indicates, pay it another visit, but shortly after its arrival in May noted that "The Learned Pig does not find great encouragement to stay in Town."  This, apparently, was due to the appearance of a "Learned Dog" which performed many of the same tricks, to the great detriment of Pinchbeck's business.* A few weeks later, on May 25th, Bentley noted laconically that "The Pig of Knowledge has left the Town. The Dog went before him."

There is no further mention of the Pig in the published Diaries -- though as they represent only a tiny fraction of the whole, one never knows. But that Bentley -- by any measure one of the most learned men of his day (he once turned down an invitation to oversee the University of Virginia) left such a favorable encomium of our learned pig, speaks greatly in his favor.

*Customs and Fashions of New England (1894) describes this learned pup thusly: "In 1798, Salem had the pleasure of viewing a "Sapient Dog" who could light lamps, spell, read print or writing, tell the time of day, or day of the month. He could distinguish colors, was a good arithmetician, could discharge a loaded cannon, tell a hidden card in a pack, and jump through a hoop, all for twenty-five cents."

Toby's Posts: The Education of a Pig

Despite the many Testimonials offered for the veracity of my own Account of my Life, there are those who are still possessed by Doubt -- either that, no matter how persistent or energetic the Training, a Pig could come to any real Knowledge of Letters -- or, and this is perhaps worse, that the ability to employ them in answering Questions, is any any way a reflection of Intelligence. To these latter doubters, who -- no matter how plain the Proofs -- will say that a pig is doing nothing more than responding to invisible Cues from its Master, I can make no other or better Reply than my own Narrative, which is now published and speaks, I believe, for itself. To that other class of doubters, however, I do have a Rejoinder, and indeed it has pleased me to Discover that, among the Natural Scientists of the Twentieth and Twenty-first century, there are many whose estimate of the Capacities of a Pig bear out, in every way, my own Life.

Education -- the word comes from the Latin phrase ex ductere, meaning "to lead forth" -- is commonly understood to consist of two Stages: the first being Rote learning, which requires chiefly repetition and Memorization, and the second being Rhetorical learning, which involves the development and utterance of one's own Opinions, and the analysis of those of others. It is fairly easy to grant that a Pig could, as well as any Human child, manage the first of these branches of Education -- and indeed, as my Life testifies, no Violence is required (although some Schoolmasters, such as Dr Johnson's, applied it all the same). It is the second which most Skepticks would point to in doubting that a Pig such as myself could compose his own sentences.

The Difference, I should say, between my experience and that of other pigs whose training never got beyond the first stage, was due entirely to my Benefactor Mr Nicholson, in his shewing me how to read on my own from Books. For, when one reads them, one is inevitably imbued, by slow degrees, with the pattern and variety of Sentences within, and it is from these Patterns that new ones must be constructed. All humans enjoy the conceit that their Utterances are Novel, for so they seem to Them, but the Lumber-yard from which their words are drawn, as well as the many old Saws which are employed to shape it, are indeed the Commonest of things, and any one who speaks the Language knows them. Had I not read such volumes as Johnson's Rasselas or Smollett's Peregrine Pickle, I should hardly have been able to write my own, at least not in a way that would meet my Readers' understanding of what a Narrative should be. Aha! cry the Skepticks -- you are naught but an Imitator! Indeed I am, but so is any one who has ever Written. The seeming novelty of most books derives, not from their utter departure from what has been said before, but by the placing of the elements of earlier tales in new and surprising Arrangements.

And so it was with me. A Writer must be first a Reader, and that there are not, on every shelf, a Plethora of Porcine autobiographies, I can attribute to the simple fact that no Pig besides myself was ever given a book of its own.

-- TOBY

Turkeys in the Straw

Although he earned his greatest fame as the exhibitor of the Learned Pig, Mr. Silas Bisset had a whole menagerie of trained animals, including a Cat Orchestra, dancing dogs, a hare who beat upon a drum, and a group of turkeys who executed a "country dance" on command.  This last act, as Toby himself notes, did Mr. Bisset the least credit:

The only group of Animals that had no training as such was the Turkeys, and here I must confess that Mr Bisset hit upon an expedient that did him little Justice, and would have greatly dimmed the applause had anyone Known of it: he simply placed them in a small wire enclosure, the floor of which was heated to the point where it became uncomfortable to Stand, and the efforts of these poor Birds to avoid scalding their Feet produced the ‘Country dance’ advertised.

 Mr Bisset was apparently not the first to resort to this cruel trick; 18th-century sources gave credit to an "Eastern" method by which camels were similarly made to dance. All the same, Bisset popularized the act considerably, and a very similar one has persisted well into the twentieth century as a sideshow at country fairs, often accompanied by a recording of "Turkey in the Straw" -- Elvis Presley's later manager "Colonel" Tom Parker once ran such a show -- and also in the form of an arcade amusement, where a bird is placed in a tiny chamber, decorated with a miniature jukebox, with a hot plate concealed under a metal disc on the floor. Inserting a quarter into the slot heated the disc, causing the bird -- usually a chicken -- to perform the same unhappy involuntary routine.

Booths with such an exhibit are mentioned in a number of personal reminiscences online, but there was one of these attractions which, perhaps inadvertently, earned an immortal place in the history of cinema, when footage of the bird was chosen by Werner Herzog for the final scene of his film Stroszek (1977). Without going into the grim backstory, it's worth noting that, according to some accounts, the crew felt uncomfortable with the scene, so Herzog shot it himself.  The location was an amusement parlor in Cherokee, North Carolina; the machine is long gone, although a similar one -- in which a chicken in a cage plays tic-tac-toe against its human opponents -- was a fixture at New York's Chinatown fair until about ten years ago; according to this article in the New York Times, those nostalgic for the experience can still find one at a casino in Monticello, New York. 

The Learned Goose

Of the career of the Learned Pig, as can be seen on this blog, a great deal is known, but what of his erstwhile companion, the Learned Goose? As it happens, the Goose was the very first of all educated animals to appear on the public stage in the wake of Toby's success; this early handbill, reproduced from one in the collection of Harry Houdini, dates to 1789, just a few years after the Learned Pig's London appearances. As was said of Toby, our cultivated Quacker has "lately arrived from abroad, and -- this is most Singular -- also spelled out answers to questions from the audience using letters printed on paste-board cards!  It further mimicked Toby's act by telling time by watches, distinguishing colors, and reading minds, even while blind-folded.

Houdini used the history of this goose to partly discredit the mind-reading act of Robert Houdin, arguing that it was simply by employing a variety of signals, and trained habits, that anyone -- or any animal -- could succeed in deceiving an audience into believing that minds had been read. No doubt that's an accurate judgment. But what of our friend Goose himself?  What are his particulars, whence went his career, and might not he also have left behind some kind of memoir?

The handbill here seems to the be first, with the goose at Mr. Becket's, Trunk-Makers, at No. 31 Hay-Market.  A second bill, reproduced in Christopher Milbourne's Magic: A Picture History, has the goose at No. 5 in the Pantechnicon Arcade, Belgrave Square (Milbourne suggests this show was in fact earlier, though he also dates it to 1789).  And then, also in his book, we have a handbill for Sieur Rea and his "Curious Birds" -- "called Minous, alive from Botany Bay" --  at the Town Hall in Weymouth in 1810, with a woodcut that shows them manipulating playing cards! It seems clear that the same kind of public fascination audiences felt for learned pigs could very easily be transferred to learned birds, with much the same act and many quite similar rhetorical flourishes.

There is even, in the pages of an issue of the Sportsman's Magazine in 1815, a conjoined petition, offered together by the Learned Pig and the Learned Goose:

PETITIONS OF THE LEARNED GOOSE AND LEARNED PIG.

OBSERVING that you have recently admitted a plea in behalf of animals in the person of a Post Horse, two of us, some of whose species have borne the appellation of learned, have made choice of your publication as a medium of conveyance of our respective claims upon the world at large.

The Learned Pig. 

The Learned Goose. 

In the way of petition, your petitioner Goose, to avoid the customary destruction of his kind at Michaelmas, as well as that of his co-partner, Pig, all the year round, humbly proposes the throwing open of all the different professions among men to your petitioners.Your petitioner, Goose, therefore humbly presumes, that no objection can lie against his being admitted to the study of the law, and, in time, becoming Attorney or Solicitor-General, seeing there are learned geese of every flock and drove, who have feathered their nests by hatches, not an egg more rational than your petitioners might be ... 

Your petitioner, Pig, confessing' that it is with difficulty he hath hitherto saved his bacon, cannot help expressing a wish in common with the four-footed fraternity,, that his grey hairs, or rather every bristle that has grown grey in the public service, may, at last, repose in an honoured grave ...

What the outcome of this petition may have been the Sportsman's Magazine gives, alas, no indication.

Early American Learned Pigs

The photograph at left shows the Black Bear Inn on Market Street in Philadelphia, where, in 1799, was shown "a curiosity in which the Public will not be disappointed, The Learned Pig. The extraordinary sagacity of this animal is too well known to need a vain, puffing allusive advertisement." This was, I believe, another appearance by William Pinchbeck and his Pig of Knowledge, who had exhibited the year before in Salem, Newburyport, Boston, and Providence, as the language  of the advertisement is quite similar.

And yet, remarkably enough, a newspaper account describing a Learned Pig's appearance at the Centre House in Philadelphia in 1803 mentions that "within the past four years, four learned pigs have been exhibited." This is a remarkable claim, and led me to look again through all the early colonial-era newspapers and histories of that city I could find. Pinchbeck's 1799 pig seems to have been the first of these "learned grunters," followed in 1801 by a second sapient swine that "astonished the visitors at the Rising Sun Hotel in Philadelphia, by telling the time of day, distinguishing colors, counting the company present." About the 1803 pig I have found nothing but the brief reference that started my search.

I have found one further candidate from the period, a southerly pig who went by the name of "Dick." Dick was unusual in that his advertisements were "penned" in the first person, as in this notice in the Charleston City Gazette:

The Learned Pig Returned. Dick begs leave to acquaint the Ladies and Gentlemen of Charleston, that he once more Intends (during the Races only, at his old Apartment, in Jessop's Hotel, Broad-Street) to contribute to their amusement, and hopes for a continuance of that Patronage his formerly so fully experienced. Dick flatters himself, that his merits are so fully known in Charleston, that any Eulogium on that subject would be perfectly unnecessary.

I haven't yet found any evidence of any earlier appearance by "Dick," but a pig is mentioned again in 1804, once more associated with the Washington Race Track (1792-1882), one of the earliest establishments for horse-racing in the United States:

The Learned Pig. To be seen at the Tent, on the Race Ground, every Day this week, and every evening at the City Hotel, Bay Street, Charleston. Admittance, 50 cents -- Children under 10 years, half-price.

It's not clear whether this was, in fact, the identical pig of previous years, nor is there any evidence that either was shown in other cities.  All the same, it's now clear that, within a year of when Pinchbeck's pig concluded its tour, at least four other pigs were making their claims to Sagacity in cities up and down the eastern seaboard!

The Intelligent Pig

We've long been aware that humans are far from the only intelligent animal. Our close cousins the chimpanzee and gorilla have been much studied, and some have attained the ability to communicate with sign language, even putting together signs to make a sentence. The chimp Washoe, seeing a doll in one of her drinking mugs, famously signed "baby in my cup." Other animals noted for their capacities include dolphins (and cetaceans generally, a group that includes dolphins and whales), although no mutually convenient means of communication has yet been found, and parrots are often noted for their mimicry of human speech, which sometimes seems to evince novel utterances. The dog, of course, has long been a companionate animal, and in one case -- a border collie named Chaser -- has been shown to have a vocabulary of more than 1,000 words, though here we're talking about recognition rather than the ability to produce them.

But the pig has long been known to be highly intelligent, with some owners of domestic pigs claiming that they are far more so than dogs. Recent studies have begun to document this capacity, with one -- led by Donald Broom of Cambridge University -- showing that pigs, once accustomed to them, were capable of using mirrors to find food, although they did not go in for staring at themselves. Mirror self-recognition has been documented in chimps, and some hold it a benchmark of sentience (personally I think this simply means pigs are less vain). Pigs are capable of learning all kinds of behaviors, and, according to Suzanne Held of the University of Bristol, once they learn a task, they remember it -- in fact it's difficult for them to unlearn it.

Perhaps all this should come as no surprise -- pigs are, science has found, somewhat closer to us genetically than we'd realized; Dr. Lawrence Schook of the University of Illinois, who sequenced a rough draft of the pig genome, was quoted in the New York Times as saying it "compares favorably with the human genome." Large sections of it are, in fact, nearly identical, which correlates with various observed similarities, such as pigs' teeth and hearts. Pigs are not nearly so close to us as chimps (who share 96% of our genome), but they are cousins of the cetaceans, and perhaps this correlates with their similar intelligence.

Further studies may tell us more -- and I can't help but wonder what might happen if, just as was the case with Toby, a pig were given the chance to manipulate letters or other signs, and use these to establish a means of communication.

Toby's Posts: The Peripatetic Pig

During the early years of my Career, my Travels carried me throughout the length and breadth of England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, journeys which included many Features which are still extant today, as well as some others -- such as my birth-place -- which have gone to ruin, or been obscured by new buildings and works. Man is a very restless Animal, and especially in his Towns and Cities seems to think nothing of pulling down one building and putting up another, such that, in the end, his Settlements appear mere Haphazard collections of structures, with little Rhyme or Reason.

Never the less, there are a number of Sights which I beheld in my day which may still be seen at Present, and I thought it might interest my readers to mention a few of these. One of my very first venues was the fair city of Liverpool, the town hall of which at that time boasted of fine Roman columns but had only a flat Roof; a lovely round Tower has since been placed atop it, and thus it stands to this day. I appeared there at the Ranelagh Gardens, which unfortunately have since gone; the site is now occupied by the Adelphi Hotel. In Dublin's fair city, I performed at Astley's Ampitheatre in Peter street -- this establishment closed a few years later, and the premises were taken by a School for Blind Females, who converted the Ampitheatre into a circular Chapel. Today, I am informed, it is merely a block of flats.

It would seem that all is changed -- but a few of my familiar places are yet remarkably intact. In the town of Chester, where I made my final appearance under the guidance of Mr. Bisset, the Inn where we resided -- the Blue Bell -- still stands, as it has since it was first built in the 1400's, its distinctive shape deriving from the joining together of its two houses. It is no longer an Inn, but houses an Eatery known as the "East Glory Oriental Restaurant." My old chambers at Pembroke College in Oxford are much the same as they were in my time, though several new Buildings have been added. Of my journey North, a few ancient Piles that stood then stand there Still, among them Penrith Castle and Lancaster Castle, whose "Hanging Corner" may yet be seen, though thankfully without its Gallows. Indeed, I am informed that this most horrid of human Institutions has been entirely eliminated in Britain as a means of Punishment, which is gratifying news indeed.

As to Edinburgh, that fair City which at last became my Home, I am pleased to discover that very little has changed, at least in the older parts. The Grassmarket, host to my last and most Successful shows, remains a great Commons of human commerce, and my favoured place of resort there -- the Bee Hive Inn -- still offers Refreshment, although the present building dates to after my Time. And of course, my beloved Alma Mater, the University of Edinburgh, is still a mighty Beacon of Learning, and -- this I can only hope -- retains some portion of the affections for Me that I hold for It.

Pigs in Song

The humble pig, although not always admired by humans for his better qualities -- that is, the qualities he has other than in being eaten! -- has never the less been celebrated in song many times over the ages. One of the better ditties is that prefaced to the comical rendition of "General Guinness" as recorded by the Boys of the Lough:

'Twas the pig fair last September,

A day I well remember,

I was walking up and down in drunken pride.

When my knees began to flutter

I fell down in the gutter

And a pig came up and lay down by my side.

As I lay there in the gutter,

Thinking thoughts I dared not utter,

I thought I heard a passing lady say:

"You can tell a man who boozes,

By the company he chooses,"

And, with that, the pig got up walked away.

The song is known generally as "The Pig and the Inebriate," and there are many variants, including one -- "The Famous Pig Song" -- which goes on in later stanzas to include quite a few other animals.

Many people, of course, are familiar with George Harrison's "Little Piggies," although technically I would consider this a song about people, with an unkind comparison to pigs, rather than a song about pigs. Alas, the idea that pigs enjoy wallowing in filth is a difficult one to eradicate, as my novel's narrator Toby himself notes:

The belief that Pigs, simply because they appreciate the cooling properties of some lovely clean Mud, are therefore inured to any sort of Refuse, or even love to Gambol in Faeces or Garbage, has such wide circulation among Humans that we could scarce dissuade them from it if we Could speak.

At the same time, there are a few songs which make reference to piggish gambols without prejudice, and one of the best of these is part of a song cycle -- punningly referred to as an "Operina" -- by my old music professor, the late great Dennis Murphy, and entitled "A Perfect Day." In Murphy's vision, each of the stages of human life is represented by a different animal, with childhood, of course, given over to the pig:

We all begin our lives as little pigs

Though most of us grow out of it,

We're few of us so fortunate,

As ever to resume that happy state!

Then, to a background of sounds of "Oink oink oink," the chorus intones:

We are in a mood, to wallow in our food!

We are in a mood, to wallow in our food!

We are in a mood, to wallow in our food!

The piggy is a happy beast

He has a fault to say the least

He likes to roll in mud and goo

And yet he's just as nice as you (or even me).

However small, however big

There's nothing cuter than a pig!

I'm sure that Toby would forgive any mild imputations of bad character in so lighthearted a song, especially given its positive conclusion.

But perhaps one of the finest -- and the saddest -- songs about pigs is one which touches very nearly on Toby's story; this is the Tiger Lilies' mournful ditty, "The Learned Pig," with libretto by the brilliant Edward Gorey. This pig, born at "the turn of the last century," is exhibited at a fairground on a bucket and forced to answer "stupid questions in a profound manner." Surely something of Toby's original story is at work here, although alas this pig meets a much harsher, and sudden end, than did Toby.