It was originally serialized in Woman's Day as The Great Dog Robbery,[1] and details the adventures of two dalmatians named Pongo and Missis as they rescue their puppies from a fur farm.

Dearly is a "financial wizard" who has been granted lifelong tax exemption and lent a house on the Outer Circle in Regent's Park in return for wiping out the government debt.

Dearly: Cruella de Vil, a wealthy woman so fixated on fur clothing that she married a furrier and forces him to keep his collection in their home so she can wear the pieces whenever she likes.

After she pays a second visit to the house and is told again that the Dearlys have no intention of putting the puppies up for sale, she hires thieves to steal them for her.

The humans fail to trace the pups, but through the "Twilight Barking", a forum of communication in which dogs can relay messages to each other across the country, Pongo and Missis track them down to "Hell Hall", the ancestral home of the de Vil family in Suffolk.

Fearing police investigation, Cruella arrives and tells the Baddun brothers, whom she left in charge of Hell Hall, that they soon must slaughter and skin the dogs.

One puppy, Cadpig, is a runt and too weak to walk the distance from Suffolk to London; Tommy, the Colonel's two-year-old owner, willingly lends her his toy farm cart.

The Dalmatians are nearly captured by Romani people, and one of the Barking Network dogs points out how conspicuous they are and helps them break into a chimney sweep's establishment, where they roll in soot to disguise themselves.

When the Dearlys visit Suffolk to return Tommy's cart, they realize that, with 97 puppies and three adult Dalmatians, a larger home would be a good idea, so Mr.

Disney kept the book's characters Horace and Jasper Baddun in both versions, but represented them as the thieves hired by Cruella to steal Pongo and Missis' puppies.

In 1996, the BBC adapted Dodie Smith's novel into a full-cast musical audio dramatization, starring Patricia Hodge as Cruella.

This version is very faithful to the source material, in that it has all the characters, but events are slightly changed – Cruella's husband argues with her more than in the novel, and they do not leave London after the destruction of the fur stocks, nor do the Dearlys ever find out she was the mastermind.

Furthermore, Perdita and Prince's story is greatly abridged, Mrs. Willow helps the Colonel attack the Badduns to prevent them following the Dalmatians, and the White Cat does not join the family until after the move to Suffolk.

[7][8] The British writer Siobhan Dowd has cited the thieving Romani characters in the book as one example of a long history of anti-Romani stereotypes in English literature.