Words about cats by writers from Aesop to Tennessee Williams. With great classic illustrations and new drawings by contemporary artists. Edited by J. C. Suarès and Seymour Chwast. The literary cat EDITED BY Jean-Claude Suarès and Seymour Chwast TEXT COMPILED BY William E. Maloney ASSOCIATE EDITOR Emily Blair Chewning

A Push Pin Press Book

Berkley Windhover Books PUSH PIN PRESS Producer: Jean-Claude Suares Editorial Director : William E. Maloney Design Director : Seymour Chwast Copyright © 1977 by Push Pin Press. An extension of this copyright page appears as acknowledgments on page 127. Produced by Push Pin Press for Berkley Windhover Books All rights reserved. Published by arrangement with Push Pin Press. All rights reserved which includes the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Push Pin Press, 207 East 32nd Street, New York, N.Y. 10016. SBN: 425-03537-9 (paper) SBN: 399-12034-3 (cloth) Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-23583 BERKLEY WINDHOVER BOOKS are published by Berkley Publishing Corporation, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Printed in the United States of America. Berkley Windhover Edition, October, 1977. Contents

5 МАЮ Dilys Laing 8 A STROLL WITH EZRA POUND William Butler Yeats 8 THE CAT AND THE MOON William Butler Yeats 11 THE LAWS OF HOEL THE GOOD Hoel 11 THE HISTOIRE OF FOUR FOOTED BEASTES Edward Topsail 12 TO A CAT A. C. Swinburne 12 THE SECRET IN THE CAT May Swenson 13 THE LADY AS CRIES CAT’s MEAT George Cruikshank 13 CATS AND KINGS Alfred Noyes 14 ODE ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE CAT Thomas Gray 14 MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES Anonymous 17 LETTER TO A SON Theodore Roosevelt 17 ON PUBLIC POLICY Adlai Stevenson 18 DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND Ewart Milne 18 UNDER-THE-TABLE MANNERS Anonymous 19 THE SONG OF THE JELLICLES T.S. Eliot 19 THE NAMING OF CATS T.S. Eliot 19 THE RUM TUM TUGGER T.S. Eliot 20 I COULD WRITE A LARGE BOOK Lafcadio Hearn 20 T H E CAT Prang’s Natural History 20 THREE TABBIES Kate Greenaway 22 THE DOMESTIC CAT The History of Animals 24 THE WHITE AND BLACK DYNASTIES Théophile Gautier 30 DIVERSION Montaigne 31 M IN M ISSES A MOUSE Henry David Thoreau 31 FABLE Aesop 32 TO A CAT John Keats 32 ALICE IN WONDERLAND Lewis Carroll 32 t h e m o u s e ’ s TALE Lewis Carroll 32 ONLY ONE CAT Charles Dudley Warner 34 ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS Lewis Carroll 34 L.C. Paula Scher 34 A THURBER CARNIVAL James Thurber 35 THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN YOUNG CATS Edward Lear 35 ALPHABET Edward Lear 35 THE OWL AND THE PUSSY CAT Edward Lear 36 T H E K IT T E N Ogden Nash 36 T H E CAT Ogden Nash 36 CAT J. R. R. Tolkien 36 THE CATS Anonymous 36 a c h i l d ’s DISCOVERY Anonymous 39 THE UNEMPLOYED CAT Carl Van Vechten 39 THE BALLAD OF TOUGH TOM Paul Galileo 40 THE KING OF THE CATS Stephen Vincent Benêt 47 THE VAMPIRE CAT OF NABESHIMA A. B. Mitford (Lord Redesdale) 47 a h ! Sir 51 THE BLACK CAT 57 THE BLACK CAT’S MESSAGE Anonymous 59 FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON Jules Verne 59 THE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD Cotton Mather 61 CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA George Bernard Shaw 61 CHEERIO, MY DEARIO Don Marquis 63 THE STORY OF WEBSTER P. G. Wodehouse 72 FABLES Ambrose Bierce 72 A CAT William Shakespeare 74 POEM William Carlos Williams 74 PUSS-PUSS D. H. Lawrence 74 AN OFFER TURNED DOWN Samuel Butler 74 THE FORMIDABLE “GYPSY” Booth Tarkington 76 CAT IN THE RAIN Ernest Hemingway 79 T H E CAT Colette 86 EPITAPH Joachim du Ballay 86 A CURIOUS TALE Anonymous 87 FICCIONES Jorge Luis Borges 87 T H E CAT W. H. Davies 87 AN ELEGY TO OSCAR H. P. Lovecraft 87 OF WALT WHITMAN Edmund Gosse 87 MIDWIFE CAT Mark Van Doren 87 t h e p o p e ’s CAT Chateaubriand 89 THE DIMINUITIVE LYON, OR CAT William Salmon 89 THREE POEMS Oliver Herford 90 THE MASTER AND MARGARITA Mikhail Bulgakov 94 THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK Anne Frank 94 THE CAT BY THE FIRE Leigh Hunt 94 THE MALEDICTION Tennessee Williams 95 OBSERVE A CAT Rousseau 96 TOBERMORY Saki (H. H. Munro) 100 BEWARE THE CAT Gulielmus Baldwin 100 PROVERB Anonymous 101 MYSOUFF Alexandre Dumas 104 THE KITTEN IN THE CORNER POCKET Mark Twain 104 d i c k b a k e r ’s CAT Mark Twain 105 AT T H E ZOO Mark Twain 108 A TALE OF THE CAT AND THE CROW Sir Richard Burton 108 CAT JEOFFRY Christopher Smart 108 CHINESE PROVERB Anonymous 112 BROOMSTICKS Walter de la Mare 123 FIVE EYES Walter de la Mare 124 LIFE OF JOHNSON James Boswell 124 MARIGOLD Richard Garnett 124 ENDOWMENT Alexander Pope 124 TO MAKE IT RAIN The Golden Bough 126 INDEX AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS