by Rowena Mills
In Part I, we tracked literary kitties from antiquity to the early nineteenth century, pouncing on intriguing examples from novels, plays, poems, and stories through the years. Now let’s see how the “tails” continue to progress toward modern literature of the twentieth century.
Jacobina, a brindled cat, is a character in Eugene Aram (1832), a “melodramatic novel” by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873). It was adapted for silent films in 1914, 1915, and 1924. (Bulwer-Lytton, an English writer and politician, is famous today for the “atrocious opening line” of his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford: “It was a dark and stormy night.”)
Famous English novelist Charles Dickens (1812–1870) wrote about a kitty named Lady Jane in Bleak House. It was published as a 20-part serial in 1852–1853.
A humorous epic poem by German poet and novelist Joseph Victor von Scheffel (1826–1886), Der Trompeter von Säckingen (The Trumpeter of Säckingen), was published in book form in 1854. Kater Hiddigeigei (Tom Cat Hiddigeigei), the feline hero, wants to be a poet — and he serves as Scheffel’s mouthpiece, transmitting Scheffel’s opinions and skepticism. Hiddigeigei has black velvet fur, green eyes, and a “mighty tail.” From a tower, he watches the people below.
Scheffel’s immensely popular book sold 400,000 copies before World War I and was adapted for opera, film, and open-air performance. A hotel and restaurant in Säckingen, Germany, are named for Kater Hiddigeigei.
One of the most famous fictional felines is the grinning and elusive Cheshire cat in Alice Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898). He was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer, teacher, inventor, and lecturer in mathematics at Oxford University, better known today for his clever books for children.
French writer Émile Zola (1840–1902) included a cat named François in Thérèse Raquin (1868), a novel first published as a serial in a magazine.
Some fictional cats are undeniably exotic. Pierre Loti, whose real name was Louis Marie-Julien Viaud (1850–1923), was a French Naval officer known for “exotic novels and short stories.” A feline named Turiri is in Loti’s autobiographical novel Le Mariage de Loti, described as a “Polynesian idyll,” originally published as Rarahu (1880). The novel inspired two French operas.
Minnaloushe, a black cat, is featured in the poem “The Cat and the Moon” by Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). It is from Yeats’ lyric poem The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), published in book form by Macmillan in New York.
A cat named Kallicrates has a major role in Blind Alley (1919), a novel about World War I by English writer Walter Lionel (W.L.) George (1882–1926). George favored feminism, pacifism, prolabor, and left-wing views.
And what surprising things have literary felines been up to in the century since World War I? Tune in next time to find out — and be ready to pounce.
