The Literary Cat Book

Dust jacket notes: "For centuries poets and writers have celebrated the cat, but never before have their efforts to praise, comprehend, describe, define, and immortalize this mysterious creature been gathered in one volume. Among those who have worshiped at the cat's shrine are Herodotus, who painted a vivid portrait of its exalted position in ancient Egypt; Rudyard Kipling, whose wonderful short story "The Cat That Walked by Himself" seeks to explain the cat's special independence; Don Marquis and Lewis Carroll, who created two of the most memorable feline characters in literature; and Benjamin Franklin, who wrote a highly imaginative defense of Madame Helvetius' cats to their impatient mistress; along with a host of other eloquent cat lovers, including William Faulkner, Paul Gallico, Damon Runyon, Charles Pierre Baudelaire, John Keats, Ogden Nash, William Shakespeare, Vachel Lindsay, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Sir Walter Scott. You may meet your own favorite feline in Mad Anthony, blind Marco Polo, or Solomon the Great, the strays and pampered Persians, the wise, mature tabbies, or the kitten with a bullfrog voice. And everyone who has ever been owned by a cat will recognize their private language, their uncanny perception of people, and their peculiar customs and habits, often unfathomable to mere human minds. As Mark Twain so aptly put it, 'A home without a cat - and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat - may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove its title?'" Illustrated with 128 black and white photographs by the author.Read More