In the past few years nothing has given me greater pleasure to read than At Home and Astray. From the very beginning I was captivated by the issues it raised, the theoretical engagement demonstrated, and the beautifully clear, elegant, and wonderfully structured writing. There are other books on humans and dogs in the Victorian period, but none have the breadth or the nuanced intellectual sophistication of Howell’s book.

With insight eclectically drawn from geography, cultural studies, and history, Philip Howell paints a compelling picture of the role of dogs in the bourgeois homes and mean streets of Victorian London

Although the British have long considered themselves a nation of dog lovers, the dog as we know it came into existence only after a profound, and relatively recent, transformation in social attitudes and practices. In the Victorian age, the dog’s changing place in society was the subject of intense debate. It was accepted on the condition that it was recognized as owned property, a domesticated "pet." At the same time as it was taking up its privileges in the private sphere, however, the dog was increasingly policed out of public space, the "stray" becoming the unloved counterpart of the household "pet." With a supporting cast that includes Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Thomas Carlyle, and Charles Darwin, and subjects ranging from vivisection and the policing of rabies to pet cemeteries, dog shelters, and the practice of walking the dog, this book’s redefinition of the dog’s place illuminates our understanding of the modernity of the Victorian age, and of the Victorian city in particular.

A tremendously readable cultural history of the way that dogs...partake of our political relationships.

... Howell takes an in-depth look at the ways in which the Victorians defined domesticity....[His] study is surprisingly moving, forcing readers to confront their own paradoxes. It is worthwhile for us, the dog lovers amongst us especially, to consider the ground zero at which the opinions about dogs and dog ownership began to form.

He revisits shared space when examining dog walking in the city, and how it became the unremarkable practice it is now. This book draws on a great deal of research and there is plenty to follow up.

This study of the dog in Victorian Britain is a welcome academic contribution because it begins the academic work that allows us to see the dog in its own zoological space.