A Dog of Flanders

Children selling milk from a dogcart, Belgium, ca. 1890

In 19th century Belgium, a boy named Nello becomes an orphan at the age of two when his mother dies in the Ardennes. His grandfather, Jehan Daas, who lives in a small village near the city of Antwerp, takes him in.

One day, Nello and Jehan Daas find a dog that was almost beaten to death, and name him “Patrasche”. Due to the good care of Jehan Daas, the dog recovers its health, and from then on, Nello and Patrasche are inseparable. Since they are very poor, Nello has to help his grandfather by selling milk, because the unnamed, crooked landlord demands rent money from them. Patrasche helps Nello pull their cart into town each morning.

Nello falls in love with Aloise, the daughter of Nicholas Cogez, a well-off man in the village, but Nicholas doesn't want his daughter to have a poor sweetheart. Although Nello is illiterate, he is very talented in drawing. He enters a junior drawing contest in Antwerp, hoping to win the first prize, 200 francs per year; however, the jury selects somebody else.

Afterwards, a fire has occurred on Nicholas’s property. The landlord said that Nello was responsible for the fire, to shift the blame of his neglect, as Nicholas tells Nello to stay away from Aloise. Later, grandfather Jehan dies, and the landlord evicts Nello and Patrasche; life becomes desperate.

Having no place to stay, Nello wishes to go to the cathedral of Antwerp, to see Rubens' The Elevation of the Cross and The Descent from the Cross — but the exhibition in the cathedral is only for paying customers, and he's out of money. On the night of Christmas Eve, the boy and his dog go to Antwerp, and, by chance, find the door to the church open. The next morning, Nello and Patrasche are found frozen to death in front of the triptych.

The novel shares a reasonable notability in both the United Kingdom and the United States and is extremely popular in Japan, Korea and the Philippines to the point where it is seen as a children's classic. It inspired film and anime adaptations, including the 1975 animated TV series Dog of Flanders which reached an audience of 30 million viewers on its first broadcast.[2]

In Belgium, the story is more obscure. Only in 1987 did it receive a Dutch translation; this happened after the tale was adapted into a story of the popular comic book series Suske en Wiske. Since then, monuments were raised to commemorate Nello and Patrasche to please tourists. In 2007, Didier Volckaert and An van Dienderen directed a documentary about the international popularity of the story: "Patrasche, A Dog of Flanders - Made in Japan". It researches all available film adaptations of the story and interviews several British, American and Japanese people about what attracts them to this novel.[2]

Film, TV and theatrical adaptations

Nello and Patrasche

The novel has been adapted for cinema and television in live-action and animation. None of the film versions, excluding the 1997 Japanese movie and Snow Prince (2009), uses the novel's ending and have preferred to substitute a more optimistic one:

• A Dog of Flanders (1914),[3] a short film directed by Howell Hansel
• A Boy of Flanders (1924),[4] directed by Victor Schertzinger and starring Jackie Coogan as Nello
• A Dog of Flanders (1935),[5] directed by Edward Sloman
• A Dog of Flanders (1959),[6] directed by James B. Clark and starring David Ladd as Nello.
• Dog of Flanders (1975), a Japanese animation TV series produced by Nippon Animation
• My Patrasche (1992), a Japanese animation TV series produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha
• The Dog of Flanders (Japan, 1997),[7] a remake of the 1975 TV series directed by Yoshio Kuroda. In this version, Aloise reflects on the life of Nello while working as a nun and the landlord is named Hans.
• A Dog of Flanders (1999),[8] directed by Kevin Brodie. In this version, the landlord is named Stevens and the ending reveals that the character Michel La Grande is Nello's long-lost father.
• Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), a South Korean satirical version directed by Bong Joon-ho
• Snow Prince (Japan, 2009), directed by Joji Matsuoka.[9] (in Japanese) At the end of this film, the boy and the dog are found frozen to death under a tree.
• A Dog of Flanders, 2011, Minoto Studios

For its authentic 19th century buildings, the Open Air Museum of Bokrijk, Flanders was used as scenery for the 1975 and 1992 anime and the 1999 film.

In one of the film versions, Nello and his dog go to the village church, where the pastor covers them with a woolen blanket, thus saving their lives. Two days later, one of the judges comes. Because he thought Nello was the true winner, he asks him to stay with him. As years pass, Patrasche dies and Nello becomes a famous artist.

In 1985 an employee of Antwerp tourism, Jan Corteel, wanted to promote "A Dog of Flanders". He presumed the village of the story to be Hoboken, even though this is never mentioned in the story itself. Ouida is believed to have visited Antwerp for four hours, and spoke of having seen a village near a canal, not far from a windmill. This vague explanation was used to claim the story took place in Hoboken, but other people contest this.[15]

Similar stories:

• The Little Match Girl (1845)
• Black Beauty (1877)
• Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009)
• Ciccio,[16] from Italy

• "Do you know "A Dog of Flanders"?". Crossroads. 2006. Archived from the original on 22 June 2006. Retrieved 6 June 2006.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: A Dog of Flanders

• Media related to A Dog of Flanders at Wikimedia Commons
• Project Gutenberg eBook