Fidèle is the canine correspondent of Medji, a lapdog owned by Sophie, Poprishchin’s unrequited love/obsession in Diary of a Madman by Nikolay Gogol (1835). Gogol uses the talking dogs to lampoon vacuous St Petersburg society ladies. When Poprishchin overhears the dogs talking, it’s the first sign he’s losing his grip on reality.

 

Victor Frankenstein of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) is a modern Prometheus who gives life to a humanoid creature made from inanimate matter. By the time this letter arrives, he is past caring. Frankenstein is narrated by Robert Walton, an English explorer, in letters to his sister in England.