Cats

A wonderful selection of writing on cats, from Aesop to Oscar Wilde, and from ancient Egypt to twentieth-century New York.

From beautiful lyrics to madcap waggery, from the prime suspect in a partridge killing in ancient Greece to the medieval monk's cat Pangur Ban and encompassing odes, fables, stories, limericks, songs, nursery rhymes and more, Mark Bryant has compiled a wonderfully evocative collection of writing of all kinds on cats by those who love them.

There are poems from Chaucer, Baudelaire, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, Christina Rossetti, Shelley and Wordsworth; humorous pieces by Lewis Carroll, Ambrose Bierce, Edward Lear and Jerome K. Jerome; and other delights from writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Saki and Mark Twain.

From ancient Egypt to the recent past, covering every genre, from humour and fantasy to romance and horror, and drawn from every part of the world, these stories, poems and excerpts from essays, letters, diaries and journals provide a collection to delight any cat-lover.

About the Author

Mark Bryant has written/compiled a number of books on cats and pets including The Church Cat: Clerical Cats in Stories and Verse; Cat Tales for Christmas; The Artful Cat: A Tribute with 60 Portraits; The World's Greatest Cat Cartoons; The Complete Lexicat: A Cat Name Companion; It's a Dog's Life: A Canine Cartoon Collection (Foreword by Jilly Cooper) and Casanova's Parrot and Other Tales of the Famous and Their Pets. In addition, he is the author of Constable: A Brief History of Britain's Oldest Independent Publisher and other books.

He lives in London with his wife and their black-and-white rescue cat, Lucky.