Dog Autobiographies and English Canine Melodrama: The Life of Carlo, the Famous Dog of the Drury-Lane Theatre (1806)

Abstract

This article aims to examine Elizabeth Fenwick’s narrative, The Life of Carlo, or the Famous Dog of Drury-Lane Theatre (1806), through the lens of the melodramatic conventions that informed Frederick Reynolds’s play, The Caravan; or the Driver and His Dog (1803), upon which the story is based. Focusing on the centrality of the dog in both works, the study first explores the key elements of classical melodrama evident in the play and the novel. It then investigates how Fenwick’s narrative engages with nineteenth-century discourses on the relationship between childhood and non-human animals. Finally, the analysis situates Fenwick’s work within the framework of classical melodrama’s ideal of citizenship, particularly as it relates to childhood and the domestication of animals.