Dogs' Miscellany features a unique and elegant collection of fascinating facts, trivia, anecdotes and legends about dogs throughout the ages.

Schott’s Original Miscellany was a publishing phenomenon. It sired a host of sequels and parodies. But no matter how patiently and for how many years they begged, the potential canine readership was continually left to pine. Until now. A Dog-Lover’s Miscellany is how the original would have appeared had its creator been an obsessive dog owner. Or, indeed, a very literate dog. It parodies the randomness of entry and stylishness of design of the original, but is created entirely for dogs and their doting owners and admirers. The result is an irresistible pot-pourri of canine facts, embracing the essential, the trivial, the intriguing, and the extraordinary. The perfect kennel-top or coffee-table book to paw through at random, herein you will discover such treats as dog epigraphs; the origins of dog names; an international guide to the word “dog”; the oldest dog; weights and breeds; Crufts winners; Aesop’s fabled dogs; most popular breeds; dog bite statistics; Lassie; and dogs on the Titanic. It is, in short, the perfect companion for your perfect companion.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1838.

Biological literature of the Roman imperial period remains somehow ‘underestimated’. It is even quite difficult to speak of biological literature for this period at all: biology (apart from medicine) did not represent, indeed, a specific ‘subgenre’ of scientific literature. Nevertheless, writings as disparate as Philo of Alexandria’s Alexander, Plutarch’s De sollertia animalium or Bruta ratione uti, Aelian’s De Natura Animalium, Oppian’s Halieutika, Pseudo-Oppian’s Kynegetika, and Basil of Caeserea’s Homilies on the Creation engage with zoological, anatomic, or botanical questions. Poikile Physis examines how such writings appropriate, adapt, classify, re-elaborate and present biological knowledge which originated within the previous, mainly Aristotelian, tradition. It offers a holistic approach to these works by considering their reception of scientific material, their literary as well as rhetorical aspects, and their interaction with different socio-cultural conditions. The result of an interdisciplinary discussion among scholars of Greek studies, philosophy and history of science, the volume provides an initial analysis of forms and functions of biological literature in the imperial period.