[ Burrows / Neptune; or The Autobiography of a Newfoundland Dog ]
This work was first published in 1869 (London: Griffith and Farran), and was republished in 1870, 1887, and 1890. The author is not identified by name on the title page, which says only that the book is "By the Author of 'Tuppy; or the Autobiography of a Donkey,' 'Trottie's Story Book,' etc". Listings of this title in the WorldCat book catalog, in The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, and on antiquarian bookstore sites credit it to "Mrs. E. Burrows," about whom very little information is available, though it's clear she was a fairly prolific writer of juvenile fiction and non-fiction.
The dedication of this book makes clear that Neptune is based on an actual Newfoundland:
To my dear friend Mrs Jacson of Barton Hall, Lancashire, this memorial of Neptune, the faithful and intelligent friend and companion of her earlier years, is affectionately dedicated.
Mrs Brown writes, on the next page, that
"It may be well to state that all the incidents told in this little story of the life of Neptune are strictly true."
The story itself is a charming, if rather standard, dog story, and most of the escapades and adventures of Neptune are not Newf-specific. The work does, however, make explicit references to the dog's breed, size, sagacity, and affinity for water. Neptune is identified as black, and there are repeated references to his curly coat.
The book begins with Neptune's young owner declaiming about the glut of biographies and autobiographies being published at the time, and declares that Neptune should write his own autobiography, which she is sure would be more interesting than most of those being published — that it would be "a charming book — a book worth reading" (2). Neptune decides she is correct, and so writes the story of his life.
He begins his autobiography with a brief review of his lineage and upbringing, the traumatic separation from his littermates, his early training — such as it was; this being a Victorian work, the training and reprimands often involve physical corrections and punishment considered utterly unacceptable now. Those lessons are also accompanied by heavy moralizing, for this is a Victorian children's tale, after all:
Obedience is not pleasant to children, neither is it pleasant to puppies; but the learning to obey forms the good dog, and I am very much mistaken if the same lesson, well learned, does not tend more than anything else to make the good man and the good woman." (15)
The moralizing continues in a similar heavy vein throughout this work as Neptune learns to swim, obey various commands, perform tricks, disobeys occasionally, protects his (female) owner from unwanted attention (and from an irritated bull), nearly drowns, suffers through several veterinary procedures, etc. The fact that "Nep" understands every word uttered to him without any formal training is, well, to be expected in a children's dog story.
The full text of this work (in facsimile) may be accessed at Google Books or at the U of Florida library
Below are all of the Newfoundland illustrations that accompany this story. The title page credits all illustrations to "A. T. Elwes" — that would be Alfred Thomas Elwes (1841 – 1917?), a well-known British illustrator of, primarily, natural history works. On the illustrations his credit appears as "A. T. Elwes del" ("del" being the abbreviation of the Latin "delineavit", meaning "he drew it"). The illustrations also carry the credit "J. S. Dalziel sc," indicating that Elwes' original drawings were engraved ("sc" is the abbreviation of the Latin "sculpsit," meaning "he engraved it") by John Sanderson Dalziel (1839 - 1937), a member of the renowned Dalziel family of engravers who produced some of the most highly regarded book illustrations in the second half of the 19th Century in England, including the engravings of John Tenniel's classic illustrations for Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
As was quite typical in the 19th Century prior to the development of the breed standard for the Newfoundland in the 1880s, the Newf shown in these illustrations has significant coat curl (which is mentioned in the text, as noted above); much the same curl is evident on some of the Newfoundlands painted by Sir Edwin Landseer and other 19th-Century artists.
"Neptune and the Chickens"
(this illustration appears as the frontispiece to the first edition)
"Neptune and the Bull"
"Neptune and the Butcher Boy"
"Neptune Faints"