To coincide with the publication of my new book, Great Authors and the Cats Who Owned Them, I am running a series throughout 2025 on the pets of famous writers. I will begin with an Australian animal, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s wombat, who was named Top.
In 1847 Regent’s Park Zoo in London opened its gates to the public. For a young poet and art student, the star of the animal collection was a wombat and before long, wombats had become something of an obsession with him, as well as his unofficial trademark. He sketched the creature and also wrote poems about it. There was something about the sheer absurdity of the animal, and its funny-sounding name, which appealed to him immensely.
In September 1869, Rossetti was able to purchase two wombats from an animal emporium in the East End. He named one of them Top, after his friend and rival in love, William Morris (whose nickname amongst his friends was Topsy). Sadly, the second wombat died almost immediately (its name has not been recorded). Top settled into Rossetti’s Cheyne Row home: “The Wombat is a Joy, a Triumph, a Delight, a Madness!”, he declared with enthusiasm.
When he and his friends created a mural for a library in Oxford, wombats were added to the scene. His sister and fellow poet Christina Rossetti added a wombat to her Goblin Market, and he even used wombats in words and pictures to help him seduce Jane Morris, the wife of his friend.
His visitors were intrigued when Top the wombat followed them around the house. Others were not so amused – one woman who had come to Rossetti to have her portrait painted was upset to find that Top had eaten her hat. Rossetti simply worried that the poor creature would find the hat indigestible. Top met Whistler and Swinburne, Ruskin, Morris and others of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. No other wombat can have enjoyed such distinguished literary and artistic company.
Sadly, Top’s life with Rossetti was a short one. On 6 November 1869, only months after being purchased, Top expired. Rossetti commemorated his pet in verse:
I never reared a young wombat
To glad me with his pin-hole eye,
But when he most was sweet and fat
And tailless, he was sure to die!
Top was stuffed and continued to adorn Rossetti’s home when placed in the entrance hall. Two weeks later he tried again with another wombat, but that poor animal lived a bare two weeks. London is not quite the place for an Aussie wombat.
Rossetti had an obsession with unusual pets – an armadillo, peacocks, monkeys, kangaroos, a raccoon, owls, marmots and a white Brahmin bull. His Chelsea home was a real menagerie.
What do you think of this literary pet? Tell me your thoughts in a comment.
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