Gustave Flaubert – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

Blind organ-grinder and dog drowned in the Meuse/Maas at Liège/Luik, Belgium

Floodwaters took his barrel-organ, he held onto his only source of income, Fido was on a string.

Unlucky organ-grinder-ballad-singers

Kasper Lutz in German (occasionally), nameless in French and English?

Monkeys here, monkeys there, monkeys everywhere

Victor Hugo puts on his black cap.

Forget the foot fetishism: Madame Bovary is Punch's role-reversed Judy (Jan Klaassen show above) and Lheureux the dog that drags her to Hell.

Daniel Heinsius’ solitary phoenix and the final words of the beastly bookseller of Barcelona

In 1927 the Catalan literary researcher and writer, Ramon Miquel i Planas (1874-1950; henceforth MiP) wrote a little book, published in a bibliophile edition, called La llegenda del llibreter assassí. In it he reflects on the origins and recycling of “Le bibliomane ou le nouveau Cardillac”, an anonymous tale published as if true in 1836…