# To Say Nothing of the Dog

By Connie Willis · Oxford Time Travel, book 2

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/to-say-nothing-of-the-dog-f327b8ea/

Historian Ned Henry needs a rest from searching through time for an object required by a Coventry Cathedral restoration. Victorian England seems a suitable refuge, until Verity Kindle’s interference with the past gives him another assignment: help prevent history from going wrong.

## What makes it funny?

Ned is too exhausted to keep his mission straight. In a séance scene, his efforts to fake a supernatural message run into competition from another trickster, leaving the solemn gathering at the mercy of rival signals and table-lifting wires.

### The comedy at work

The need to protect history repeatedly collides with the need to behave properly in Victorian company. Ned must improvise his way through social occasions while privately keeping track of deception, missed instructions and consequences that reach far beyond the room.

### Try this if…

Victorian social mishaps and time-travel puzzles share the page here. Readers who enjoy elaborate misunderstandings have a distracted historian and competing schemes to untangle.

### Good to know

The novel shares its Oxford time-travel setting and some minor characters with Doomsday Book. Its separate Ned-and-Verity adventure can be read on its own.

## What to expect

- Genre: Science fiction
- On the shelf: Time travel
- Kind of humor: Farce
- Format: Novel
- Length: 608 pages
- Audiobook: 20 hr 59 min
- Published: 1997

## Sources & further reading

- Review: [Kirkus review](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/connie-willis/to-say-nothing-of-the-dog)
- Book information: [Audiobook edition](https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/to-say-nothing-of-the-dog/280093)
- Reader discussion: [Reader discussion](https://facebook.com/groups/133072126767609/permalink/25015614544753356)
- Book information: [Original edition bibliography](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14858392W/To_Say_Nothing_of_the_Dog?edition=tosaynothingofdo00will)
- Book information: [Apple Books audiobook](https://books.apple.com/ca/audiobook/to-say-nothing-of-the-dog/id1640895429)
- Publisher: [Publisher edition and series](https://subterraneanpress.com/to-say-nothing-of-the-dog)
- Publisher: [Publisher and excerpt](https://penguinrandomhouselibrary.com/book?isbn=9780593724347)