If Ouida is now remembered at all, three-quarters of a century after her death, it is probably only as the author of Under Two Flags (1867). Even that small measure of fame owes something to the dramatized versions of the story rather than to the original novel. The lack of serious modern critical regard, however, cannot obscure the picture of a popular late-nineteenth-century writer. She lived for most of her career and died in Italy, a few miles from Pisa, surrounded by the dogs whose company she came to enjoy more than that of many humans. When Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and Sydney Cockerell went to visit her, their driver could only find his way when he realized that they wished to see "the lady with the many dogs." Her main monument in England was a drinking fountain for dogs and horses in Bury St. Edmunds, the town of her...