Hodge

Hodge was the much-loved cat of Samuel Johnson — the 18th-century lexicographer who compiled the first comprehensive dictionary of the English language. Johnson's biographer James Boswell, who was reportedly nervous around cats, recorded the relationship with charming exasperation. Boswell wrote that Johnson was so devoted to Hodge that he would walk to the market himself to buy oysters for the cat rather than send a servant, fearing the servants would resent the errand and dislike Hodge as a consequence. Boswell described Hodge as 'a very fine cat indeed', a phrase that has outlived almost every other Boswell remark. The relationship has come to symbolise the literary love affair between writers and cats — Johnson was perhaps the first widely-celebrated literary cat owner. In 1997, sculptor Jon Bickley unveiled a bronze statue of Hodge outside Johnson's old house at 17 Gough Square in London, where Johnson lived between 1748 and 1759 while compiling his Dictionary. The statue shows Hodge sitting on a copy of the Dictionary alongside an empty oyster shell, and is inscribed with Boswell's famous compliment. The statue has become one of London's most-photographed minor literary landmarks.