BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Winner Announced
July 16, 2008
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: or The Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale, a pacy analysis of a murder case in a Wiltshire country house in 1860 which inspired detective genre writers including Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, was tonight named the winner of the BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2008. [...]


I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. . . . I recollect [Hodge] one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying 'why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.'