Oysters for Hodge, or, Ordering Society, Writing Biography and Feeding the Cat

In their biographies of Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi and James Boswell both recount with concern Johnson's willing violation of hierarchies of race, class and gender in personally buying oysters to feed his cat Hodge, so that, Piozzi reports, ‘Francis the Black's delicacy might not be hurt, at seeing himself employed for the convenience of a quadruped’. Piozzi also uses the story of Hodge's oysters to justify her own labours as Johnson's nurse and confidante, while Boswell's Life depicts Hodge, Johnson's privileged intimate, as a rival to the man most anxious to claim that title for himself.