First Published: 1980
Publisher : Boydell Press
Hardback : 144 pages
ISBN-10 : 0851151221 / ISBN-13 : 978-0851151229
1988 reprint - Hardback with dustjacket
Publisher: Huddlesford Publications
Hardcover : 142 pages
ISBN-10 : 0907827136 / ISBN-13 : 978-0907827139
Size: 22.5cm x 14.5cm approx
Weight: 310g approx.
Illustrated by Martin Knowelden
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn
2008 reprint - softcover
Tideline Publications Promotions
ISBN-10 : 190648628X / ISBN-13 : 978-1906486280
Book Description:
Brian Plummer's novel which is set in the Victorian era has as its central characters Nathan, a pitfighting dog, and his owner Joby Fox, an ex-prize fighter. It is a skillful re-creation of a vanished world and is powerfully told by a master story teller. This novel met with both critical acclaim and popular success.
Extract:
“Too Old, Too Damned Old
The cart bumped on the rut-filled road and Nathan awoke. With one eye he surveyed the other occupant of the cart. A goose, Fen bred, sired by a wild greylag, fluttered nervously in the crate near him. No threat this, and tame livestock were forbidden anyway. He breathed a deep sigh, the breath coming irregularly through his damaged muzzle and nostrils. Scars were the hallmark of his trade. Few, if any, fighting dogs were free of them, and he, well he hadn't exactly spent ten years in idleness, becoming the darling of Cheapside, the favourite of the costermongers, without getting a few wounds. They were superficial, old scars, anyway, and caused him no trouble or pain.
He stretched his limbs, hind legs pointing backwards and moved fluidly within his loose skin. There was a fierce exultation in being in perfect condition, a joy in being alive. Even a pit dog achieved this peak of condition only maybe ten times in his entire life, and a street cur, or a lap-mooching pet, never. Judicious deprivation - he had been reduced to a near skeleton, fed on bread slop, until a flux of the bowels had weakened him, dragging his weight below thirty pounds and then gradually "fleshed out" with meat and physic, massage and exercise. A dog couldn't hold this peak for long and it was his trainer's job to make sure he would be in this state of perfection the night of the fight. Two ribs showed and his coat sparkled with the health and vitality, the glow, that is the mark of all well trained athletes, albeit elderly ones. He stretched and slept.
"God's teeth," said Joby slackening the reins to gaze back into the cart. "How the hell can a beast sleep at a time like this?"
"Perhaps," he mused, "animals don't think like folk, though to be sure he knows where he's going, for he's made these trips often enough, that's for certain." He eyed the battle-scarred dog almost pensively. Each scar could tell a tale. That slash now, near the…………………”
The Author
David Brian Plummer (11 September 1936 - 12 September 2003)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Plummer
Also of interest: D Brian Plummer Documentary - Rats & Running Dogs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUsPHaDE2Fk
