by Rowena Mills
If you think a strong and sympathetic interest in cats is only a modern development, think again. Although cats have been misunderstood and mistreated for centuries, they also have been featured in literature since ancient times. Cats appear in fables, fairy tales, songs, poems, short stories, novels, plays — and later, movies, television, and other media. Some people wrote about or were inspired by their own cats, and others created fictional felines.
Here are just a few of the older examples: Bellcat was one of the felines in fables told by Aesop (c. 620–564 B.C.), a Greek fabulist (someone who creates or writes fables).
In about the ninth century, an anonymous Irish monk at or near Reichenau Abbey in what is now Germany wrote a poem, “Pangur Bán” (probably translated as “White Fuller”), about his cat of the same name. In eight verses of four lines each, the author cleverly compares his cat’s happy hunting with his own scholarly pursuits. The poem is preserved in the monk’s manuscript notebook, called the Reichenau Primer, which has diverse contents.
A story we know as “Puss in Boots” was first told as “Constantino Fortunato” (“Lucky Constantino”) by Giovanni Francesco Straparola, in The Facetious Nights of Straparola (c. 1550–1553). Another version was by Girolamo Morlini, and another, by Giambattista Basile, was published as “Cagliuso” in 1635. Charles Perrault (1628–1703) included the most popular version, “Le Chat Botté,” in his book of fairy tales. It has inspired several movies, the latest in 2022.
In 1561, William Baldwin (1515–1563), a poet and satirist, published Beware the Cat, the first novel in English. The main characters are talking cats.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) refers to a spirit cat called Graymalkin in the opening scene of Macbeth (1606). Also spelled Grimalkin or Greymalkin, it is an archaic term for “cat” and the name of a fairy feline that dwells in the Scottish Highlands.
Englishman Christopher Smart (1722– 1771) included a 74-line poem, “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry,” in Jubilate Agno, a long religious poem he wrote in 1759– 1763 while incarcerated in a mental hospital (probably unfairly). It was not published until 1939. Smart lovingly lists the virtues andhabits of Jeoffry, making the cat famous today in English literature.
Published anonymously in London in 1811, Felissa; or the Life and Opinions of a Kitten of Sentiment, was probably written by Elizabeth Ludlow. It is the “autobiography” of an English kitten and is considered one of the rarest and most beloved cat-related books. The first edition, with 12 hand-colored copperplate engravings, sells for $1,000. Even the 1903 reprint brings hefty prices.
These teasers doubtless pique your interest in literary kitties, so we will continue to
“purrsue” the topic in future offerings. And maybe in the serendipitous chance of a lifetime, you will unexpectedly find a bargain copy of Felissa in the meantime.
