Kimberly's Reviews > Flush: A Biography

“It is universally admitted that the family from which the subject of this memoir claims descent is one of the greatest antiquity.”

From ancient times the Spaniel was a dog of value and reputation. However, from the Spaniel’s perspective, he was an outdoor hunting dog, flushing and retrieving game. He was most happy when he was chasing rabbits, pheasants and lady Spaniels. After all, his name Flush implied what he loved doing best. As a puppy born on a farm outside of London, he enjoyed the life he was born to do, but only for a brief time.

“The hunting horn roused deeper instincts, summoned wilder and stronger emotions that transcended memory and obliterated grass, trees, hare, rabbit, fox in one wild shout of ecstasy. Love blazed her torch in his eyes; he heard the hunting horn of Venus. Before he was well out of his puppy-hood, Flush was a father.”

So begins Virginia Woolf’s biography of Flush [1933], The Cocker Spaniel given to Elizabeth Barret Browning [1806-1861] by fellow writer and dog lover Mary Russell Mitford. This was some years, however, before Elizabeth married Mr. Browning, and Elizabeth was an invalid living in her overbearing father’s home.

Early on, we begin to feel a sense of the sacrifice Flush makes in his transformation as companion to Elizabeth. His loyalty is unwavering. He begins to intuitively respond to her. “He could read signs that nobody else could even see.”

Through Woolf’s brilliant writing, she portrays the dog’s perception of the human and all of our complex emotions. “Flush, as his story proves, had an even excessive appreciation of human emotions.” However, “Not a single one of his myriad sensations ever submitted itself to the deformity of words.”

“Unable to solve the problem of reality, [Flush] pressed closer to Miss Barrett and kissed her "expressively." That was real at any rate.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote love poems, and so it is fitting to think of this story as a love story. It is considered a biography because Woolf wrote Flush from the poems written by Elizabeth as well as the many letters exchanged between Elizabeth and Mr. Browning during their courtship.

However, it is more than just a love story. This is a story that beautifully depicts the human and animal experience and affectionate bond. It is also a story about identity, transformation and freedom. The setting of 19th Century London also allows Woolf to explore certain social issues, from a dog’s point of view.

I particularly enjoyed sections of the book describing the transformation for both Elizabeth and Flush when she married Mr. Browning and they began their lives anew in Florence, Italy, where they both enjoyed renewed spirit, vitality and sense of freedom.

“Now he heard the same voice pealing down the narrow streets of Florence, but more imperiously, more impetuously, after all these years of silence. Now Flush knew what men can never know – love pure, love simple, love entire; love that brings no train of care in its wake; that has no shame; no remorse; that is here, that is gone, as the bee on the flower is here and gone. Today the flower is a rose, tomorrow a lily; now it is the wild thistle on the moor, now the pouched and portentous orchid of the conservatory. So variously, so carelessly Flush embraced the spotted spaniel down the alley.”


One has to ask why Woolf would want to write a biography about a dog when all of her other work is, well, quite serious. Ms. Woolf did not want to be characterized as “charming, delicate or ladylike.” She must have admired Elizabeth, as an individual and writer. Perhaps she felt some kinship to Elizabeth. Woolf’s two dogs were a mutt named Grizzle and a Spaniel named Pinka, a gift from her close friend and lover Vita Sackville-West.


I like to think that Woolf was taken by the devotion and gratitude expressed in Elizabeth’s poem, “To Flush, My Dog,” which is twenty-one stanzas long. I share only a few here:

LOVING friend, the gift of one,
Who, her own true faith, hath run,
Through thy lower nature;
Be my benediction said
With my hand upon thy head,
Gentle fellow-creature!

But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary, —
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
Round the sick and dreary.

Other dogs of loyal cheer
Bounded at the whistle clear,
Up the woodside hieing —
This dog only, watched in reach
Of a faintly uttered speech,
Or a louder sighing.

Therefore, to this dog will I,
Tenderly not scornfully,
Render praise and favour!
With my hand upon his head,
Is my benediction said
Therefore, and for ever.


This book was such a delight. I incorrectly assumed that Flush would be a bit of literary FLUFF. I was pleasantly surprised. Five doggy-heart stars.