[ Thornbury / "Street Dogs of Constantinople" ]


George Walter Thornbury (1828–1876) was a prolific English journalist and writer on a variety of subjects, including travel.


This essay, which first appeared in All the Year Round, a weekly literary magazine owned and edited by Charles Dickens, is a consideration of the canine population of Constantinople (now Istanbul). Newfoundlands are mentioned only once, and only metaphorically:

Now, you must not – you must not run away with the notion that the pariah dogs, perhaps of good lineage, are mean, ugly, or debased in face or bearing, not they! They may not be as bold and chivalrous as the shaggy Newfoundland. . . . (II: 257)



There is another work discussed here at The Cultured Newf regarding the dogs of Constantinople, and it involves a real-life Newfoundland's difficulties when his famous owner, the famed French actress Sarah Bernhardt, visited that city with her Newf.




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.street dogs of constantinople