Some wrote with cats at their feet, others with dogs at their sides, and one or two with stuffed birds on their desks. 

Some wrote with cats at their feet, others with dogs at their sides, and one or two with stuffed birds on their desks. 

Flaubert Had a Parrot is a 16-page illustrated zine exploring the special (and sometimes chaotic) companionship between thinkers, artists, and their animals.

Inside, you’ll find a group made of writers, philosophers, and artists alongside the friends who kept them company, distracted them, comforted them, and occasionally became part of the work itself, from Emily Dickinson and her “shaggy ally” Carlo to Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Edward Gorey, Margaret Wise Brown, Leonora Carrington, and more, of course, with their respective companions. These are not background characters. They are collaborators of a different kind. Some were beloved pets, some were muses, some were… slightly questionable choices.

And at the end, from Emily Dickinson:

Those final Creatures, –who they are–

That, faithful to the close,

Administer her ecstasy,

But just the Summer knows.

A small, strange collection of companionship, curiosity, and creative life, told through the best Creatures.