Kmflett's Blog

26th August is International Dog Day. Like at the best traditions its an invented one, and quite recently, in 2004. Its clearly been seized on by the ‘Dog Industry’ to promote all things dog related. That said dogs are omnipresent both in life and literature. I had a look through the collected works of Marx and Engels for dog references. There are quite a few, mainly well known examples of how dogs feature in speech i.e ‘raining cats and dogs’ (a favourite phrase of Engels when in London later in life).

I also came across a reference to actual London dogs in a letter Marx wrote to his daughters, who were staying in Bagneres du Luchon on 13th June 1871. The reference to ‘cousins from the country’ refers to refugees from the Paris Commune. Unlike Britain in 2026 they were free to enter the country and stay. The police no doubt kept an eye however hence Marx’s coded reference.

Here in London life is just now dull enough. The cousins from the country are thronging its streets. You recognise them at once by their bewildered airs, their astonishment at everything they see
and their feverish anxiety at the convolution of horses, cabs, omnibuses, people, babies, and dogs.

According to a memoir written by Marian Comyn:

Karl Marx was fond of dogs, and three small animals of no particular breed–of a mixture of many breeds indeed–formed important members of the household. One was called Teddy, another Whisky–the name of the third I forget, but I fancy that, too, was alcoholic. They were all three sociable little beasts, ever ready for a romp, and very affectionate. One day, after an absence of six weeks in Scotland, I went to see Eleanor and found her with her father in the drawing-room, playing with Whisky. Whisky at once transferred his attentions to me, greeting me with ebullient friendliness, but almost immediately he ran to the door and whined to have it opened for him.

The memoir was written in 1922 but Comyn was a friend of Eleanor Marx and visited Marx’s Kentish Town home in the later 1870s