After the death of their beloved dog Whym Chow, Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper, who write collectively as Michael Field, underwent a radical spiritual and poetic shift by converting to the Roman Catholic Church. Each partner viewed this shift differently. Bradley focused on the ways in which Whym Chow’s death represented a rupture in their domestic Trinity, while Cooper focused on the sacrificial aspects of euthanising the dog as an act of their own will. Converting to the Roman Catholic Church impacted both Bradley and Cooper’s relationship with one another and their poetic creativity and dominated the final years of their shared life.

Michael Field and Oscar Wilde moved in overlapping cultural and social circles from the mid-1880s to his imprisonment in May 1895. Their mutual acquaintances included Bernard Berenson, John Gray, Charles Ricketts, Charles Shannon, Robert Ross, and William Rothenstein. Bradley was eager to befriend Wilde at one of Louise Chandler Moulton’s ‘at-homes’ in 1890. In 1891, the coauthors paid a visit to Wilde’s family residence. Later, they sought his advice on their only staged drama, A Question of Memory (1893). They maintained, too, a strong interest in Wilde’s comedies. Still, Bradley, Cooper, and Wilde never became close friends. Nonetheless, after Wilde’s demise in late 1900, Michael Field respected his legacy, attending the double bill of Salome and A Florentine Tragedy in 1906, choosing to remember him positively.