Episode 40: The Thing About Lady Bertram's Pug with guest Dr. Stephanie Howard-Smith

Every dog has its day! Dr. Stephanie Howard-Smith is here to answer all of our many questions about Lady Bertram's pug in Mansfield Park, covering everything from Pug's name, why Austen might have chosen a pug for Lady Bertram, and the gendered aspects of 18th-century dog ownership.

Thank you so much to Stephanie for joining us for this episode! You can find her on Twitter @SAHowardSmith.

For more work about Pug and lapdogs from Stephanie:

• ​Howard-Smith, Stephanie. “Bridgerton’s Beloved Corgi Is a Total Fraud.” Slate, March 31, 2022. https://slate.com/culture/2022/03/bridgerton-season-2-kate-sharma-dog-corgi-historical-accuracy.html.

• ———. “China-Pugs: The Global Circulation of Chinoiseries, Porcelain, and Lap-Dogs, 1660-1800.” In Oriental Networks: Culture, Commerce, and Communication in the Long Eighteenth Century, edited by Bärbel Czennia and Greg Clingham, 63–91. Aperçus: Histories Texts Cultures. Lewisberg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press, 2021.

• ———. “‘Hearty Fow Children’: The Penrhyns, Pugs, and Mansfield Park.” Persuasions 35 (2013): 191–99.

• ———. “Little Puggies: Consuming Cuteness and Deforming Motherhood in Susan Ferrier’s Marriage.” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 34, no. 3 (March 1, 2022): 307–32. https://doi.org/10.3138/ecf.34.3.307.