Physical description

Hard cover book, A Dog of Flanders
Author: Ouida (Maria Louise Ramé)
Publisher: George Robertson
Date: 1873
Further Information: Blue cloth hardcover and spine with spine lettering in black texter. The spine has a Library label with inscription.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine cover with typed text 843
Front loose end paper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service
The Flyleaf has the name "Louise Ranie" written in blue ink.
Paste down front end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Public Library covered by a sticker from Corangamite Regional Library Service

Summary

A Dog of Flanders (originally published in 1872) is a deeply moving, bittersweet story set in Belgium. It follows Nello, an impoverished orphan boy with a passion for art, and Patrasche a loyal, cart-pulling, abandoned, and abused draft dog whom Nello and his gentle grandfather, Jehan Daas, rescue and nurse back to health.
The story focuses on the bond between Nello and Patrasche as they become inseparable, helping the aging Jehan pull a milk cart into Antwerp each day to earn a meagre living. Nello longs to become a great painter like the Baroque master Peter Paul Rubens. His only hope is to win a prestigious local drawing contest with a portrait he has laboured over.
After a series of devastating setbacks his grandfather passes away, they are evicted, and Nello loses the drawing competition he and Patrasche his cart pulling dog seek shelter from a freezing Christmas Eve blizzard inside the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp. There, Nello finally gazes upon Rubens’s shielded masterpieces, The Descent from the Cross and The Elevation of the Cross. The story ends sadly as, the next morning, the loyal dog and the young boy are found frozen to death, locked in a final embrace in front of the altar.