“Doncher be too sure of that!”: Children, Dogs, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’s Early Posthumanism

This essay traces posthuman thought in stories about dogs and children by nineteenth-century American author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Drawing from the writings of Phelps and her anti-vivisectionist contemporaries and from recent posthuman philosophy, I analyze the ways in which Phelps’ focus on medical experimentation became a way for her to theorize the place of the nonhuman animal in fiction for children.