My Dog Tulip

By J.R. Ackerley
Introduction by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

J.R. Ackerley's German shepherd Tulip was skittish, possessive, and wild, but he loved her deeply. This clear-eyed and wondering, humorous and moving book, described by Christopher Isherwood as one of the "greatest masterpieces of animal literature," is her biography, a work of faultless and respectful observation that transcends the seeming modesty of its subject. In telling the story of his beloved Tulip, Ackerley has written a book that is a profound and subtle meditation on the strangeness abiding at the heart of all relationships.

Read the introduction (PDF)

Reviews

[Ackerley's] descriptions of Tulip have the power to shake up our sentimental preconceptions about dogs, and dogs' relationships to men; and they twinkle with the electricity of felt compassion and love.
— Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Also see:

Hindoo Holiday By J.R. Ackerley Introduction by Eliot Weinberger Hindoo Holiday is an intimate and very funny account of an exceedingly strange place, and one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century travel literature.

My Father and Myself By J.R. Ackerley Introduction by W.H. Auden Ackerley's pursuit of his father is also an exploration of the self, making My Father and Myself a pioneering record, at once sexually explicit and emotionally charged, of life as a gay man.

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