“The Mouse of Feeling.” A sentimental mouse in Dorothy Kilner’sThe Life and Perambulations of a
Mouse(1783)


Eva Čoupková


The paper discusses themes and topics present in one of the best-known works of children’s
literature that appeared in the second half of the 18th century in Britain, and also one of the
first which employs an animal narrator. In this episodic story, the mouse Nimble and his brothers
travel through various households experiencing a series of misfortunes while interacting with child
and adult inhabitants of homes, overhearing their conversations, and making moral judgments on
them. However, the novel cannot be viewed only as an instructional, didactic text for children; it
also reflects the tendencies seen in the British literature of the period, especially the
influences of sentimentalism, popularity of picaresque novels, as well as the emerging interests in
animal rights.