One of the aims of the series to which this book belongs, Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature, is to challenge the idea of ‘human exceptionalism’: to ‘problematise the separation of the human from other animals’. This contentious ambition is not, however, one that the author always pursues. While he offers reflections on the relationship between humans and animals – including the thought that they have ‘developed … in a “co­evolutionary” way’ – his main purpose is to recount the history of the ‘imaginative representations’ of greyhounds in literature, myth, art and film. It is a history that extends from ancient Greek myths, like that of Actaeon, torn to pieces by his own hounds, to recent films and TV shows that involve greyhound racing. Among the many representations discussed are ones by Italian Renaissance artists, Shakespeare, 19th-century French aesthetes and 20th-century Irish poets.

John Stokes, an emeritus professor of English literature with a wide knowledge of art and culture, is well equipped to tell this story. He is also a dog lover, with an unashamed preference for the greyhound – ‘the most charismatic, the most beautiful as well as the most ancient of dogs’. Although a critic of the uses to which greyhounds have been put in hare coursing and racing, he is occasionally able to understand the excitement these offer to some people. 

Stokes tells his story well, even if sometimes the reader might feel overwhelmed by the volume of quotes assembled to illustrate some representation of greyhounds. Occasionally, too, his reading of a work can sound inflated, as when, for example, he interprets some recent novels – by Edna O’Brien among others