The Digital Digest
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With Pequot Library's May 6 Derby Day Celebration less than one month out, we're celebrating horses. New to Derby Day, one of Pequot Library's most popular fundraisers? The event started in 2008, as this article explains. Below, flashback photos from 2017.
Exhibition Connection
The Famous History of Whitington and his Cat. Shewing, How from a poor Country Boy, destitute of Parents or Relations, he obtained great Riches, and was promoted to the high and honourable dignity of Lord Mayor of London
Newfield Conn: Beach and Jones, 1797
Pequot Library Special Collections
Despite a growing desire for books of American-authorship, most children’s books published in the U.S. through the first decades of the 19th century were pirated British works. The works of Ellenor Fenn, Anna Letitia Barbauld, and Maria Edgeworth, for example, contained messages that American parents could support. But pirated British works also included less educational fare, such as The Famous History of Whitington and his Cat–an English folktale about the real-life Richard Whittington (c. 1354–1423), wealthy merchant and later Lord Mayor of London.
The legend, written versions of which date back to the 1600s, describes Dick's rise out of an impoverished childhood. As a boy, he listened to elaborate tales about the wealth of London, instilling in him a deep sense of longing. One day, a wagon with eight horses entered his village, and he befriended the wagoneer, begging for a ride to London. They set off on an adventure and happened upon a city that appeared dirty, its people ill-mannered. Dick slept in a garret overrun with rats, and he purchased a cat for a penny. Eventually, he sold this cat to a rat-infested country, making a fortune and allowing him to scale the London political scene.
This tale has been a fixture in British society, with one adaptation running on the stage since its first performance around 1814. It has also been adapted into opera, pantomime, and as a puppet play performed at Covent Garden. Diarist Samuel Pepys wrote about taking in a show on September 21, 1668. Read more about the cultural significance of this story here.
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