By Carmel Bird
PETS
Great Writers and the Cats Who Owned Them
Susannah Fullerton
Bodleian Library, $34.99
“One cat just leads to another,” said Ernest Hemingway, who at one time lived with more than 50 cats. He is one of the many great writers whose lives, works and cats are vividly chronicled here. Susannah Fullerton takes readers on a rich voyage across time, from a 9th-century Irish monastery all the way to Donaldson’s dairy in New Zealand in the 21st. Each of the 17 chapters is named for a cat who “condescended” to live with an author. The research is vast and fully documented, and the writers, as well as their cats, leap from the pages of this fascinating and entertaining book.
Astonishing insights into the minds and hearts of the writers abound. When Charles Dickens’ beloved cat Bob died, the author had one of his paws made into the handle for an ivory letter-opener. Paul Gallico lived with23 cats, and firmly believed that he, himself, had previously been a cat. Mark Twain always let his cat, Bambino, go through a door ahead of him, as if the cat were royalty. When Bambino was missing, the author advertised his disappearance, and hundreds of people lined up at his door, bringing cats – none of which was Bambino. Margaret Mitchell warns that the human must become “a slave to the creature’s insistent desires to get out when he’s in and in when he’s out”.
“Nothing restores the soul so much as the contemplation of a cat,” says Muriel Spark.
Some of the cats have themselves gone down in history. Nelson was famously Chief Mouser for Winston Churchill, and you can study one of Edward Lear’s cats on its own Wikipedia page.
Ernest Hemingway with one of his cats, Cristobal. The author lived with up to 50 felines.Credit:
One cat was himself an author. This was Socks, who condescended to live with Bill Clinton, and who carried on a vast correspondence with his own fans, many of whom were other cats. Visitors to Strawberry Hill House, where Horace Walpole lived, can today, 300 years after the death of the cat Selima, see the Chinese goldfish bowl in which the cat was accidentally drowned. The widely celebrated musical Cats is based on the poems in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possums Book of Practical Cats, which explores feline psychology, sociology and behaviour. The book is Eliot’s biggest bestseller.
Former US President Bill Clinton’s cat Socks, in 1994.Credit: AP
One startling and colourful anecdote after another spills elegantly across the pages of Fullerton’s book. Legend has it that Isaac Newton invented the cat flap because his cat ruined his experiments with light by pushing open the door. Then there is the well-documented account of how physicist Nick Hill invented the microchip cat flap to stop unwanted cats getting in and disturbing his cat, Flipper.
And way back in the 14th century Geoffrey Chaucer wrote of a cat hole “ther as the cat was wont in for to crepe” in The Miller’s Tale. Such information is often included in the sections, titled Paws For Thought, at the end of each chapter, and they are full of little treasures.
The whole text is crammed with irresistible detail ranging from the history of human interaction with cats to minute and whimsical moments in the lives of writers. Samuel Johnson bought oysters for his fussy cat, Hodge. The chapter on this pair also gives some of the backstory of how cats have been viewed over time. Although the cat was revered in Ancient Egypt, by the Middle Ages in Europe they were being demonised and brutalised. Fullerton bluntly relates the horrors of all this.
The first commercial cat food appeared in London in 1860. The first British pet cemetery was opened in Hyde Park in 1881, and welcomed cats, dogs, monkeys and birds. In 1856, Mary Anne Cust published the first book on cat care. When Mark Twain went on holiday, he was unable to live without cats, and so he used to rent some.
I had a marvellous time reading this seriously delightful book. How I rejoiced to find the chapter on Lynley Dodd and Slinky Malinki, one of my favourite cats in literature. Cat lovers, I suggest you treat yourselves by following my example.
Carmel Bird’s new novel, Crimson Velvet Heart, will be published in November.
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