The Headlong Career and Woful Ending of Precocious Piggy

One of the more remarkable children's books featuring a pig is Thomas Hood's The Headlong Career and Woful [sic] Ending of Precocious Piggy, by the Late Thomas Hood; Illustrated by His Son (Boston: Mayhew and Baker, 1859). In this tale, a pig leaves his mother to go see the wider world. He tries out a career as a landscape gardener, rides in a carriage, starts drinking, attends a ball and the fair, and buys a wig (see image at right) before meeting his end with the butcher. It's quite a dark story, one you can read for yourself here, as a hand-colored version has been digitized by the State University System of Florida.

Thomas Hood is perhaps more known in pig circles for his poem "The Lament of Toby, The Learned Pig," about which more later.