More Catlore Galore...

I’m still thinking about cats.
And writers.
And writers that loved cats.
One of my favorite writers of all time, Thomas Hardy, had a number of cats. Sadly, they seemed to live out the ill-fatedness that he loved to write about! Three were killed on the railroad in 1901, and another used up all of its nine lives in a similar fashion in 1904. Hardy’s last cat, Cobby, a grey Persian with orange eyes, survived him.
Hardy’s house (Max Gate) was a haven for cats. When a visitor called on him at teatime one afternoon in 1900 and asked if the cats were all his he replied:
“Oh dear, no. Some of them are, and some are cats who come regularly to have tea, and some are still other cats, not invited by us, but who seem to find out about this time of day that tea will be going.”

Ernest Hemingway was a rabid lover of cats. [Keep in mind, this is very different than being a lover of rabid cats!]
When living in Cuba, he kept about 30 of them. Like at once.
Some of the names? Princesca, Fatso, Furhouse, Thrusty, Bigotes, Alley Cat, Crazy Christian, Dillinger, Friendless, Uncle Wolfie, Barbershop, Ecstasy, Spendthrift, F.Puss, Christoper Columbus.
In fact, Hemingway had so many cats that he built a separate building, The Cat House, for them. The favorite cat was Boise, a cat with a bizarre appetitie. He was a four-legged garbage disposal unit. Cole slaw, cucumbers, mangoes, honeydew melon, Mexican tacos with hot sauce, raw celery, cantaloupe... Boise ate it all.

Charlotte Bronte had a cat called Tiger and a black cat called Tom.
H.G. Wells had a cat named Mr. Peter Wells.
Dorothy Sayers had a white cat called Timothy.
Irish born novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch was the proud owner of a dearly beloved cat named General Butchkin.
Edgar Allen Poe had a large tortoise-shell cat called Caterina which inspired him to write the horror story “The Black Cat”. When Poe’s 24-year old wife Virginia was dying of TB in 1847, Caterina curled up on the young woman’s chest to keep her warm.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s cat was named Chopin.

Charles Dickens was a great lover of cats. In Gad’s Hill, the cats were not allowed in, because he also kept birds. The exception was a white tom called William, whom he was forced to rename Williamina when “he” had six kittens.
One of these kittens, apparently born deaf, became a favorite, and was named The Master’s Cat. She soon learned a trick all on her own. She would snuff out the candle when Dicekns would be awake late at night, reading and writing. As his daughter Mamie recalled, one night Dickens was reading alone in the drawing-room at a small table on which a lighted candle was placed:
Suddenly the candle went out. My father, who was much interested in his book, relighted the candle, stroked the cat, who was looking at him pathetically he noticed, and continued his reading. A few minutes later, as the light became dim, he looked up just in time to see puss deliberately put out the candle with his paw, and then look appealingly toward him. This second and unmistakable hint was not disregarded, and puss was given the petting he craved. Father was full of this anecdote when all met at breakfast the next morning.

Raymond Chandler had a Persian cat called Taki, whom he considered to be his secretary, as she was always present when he was writing his “private eye” novels. Usually, Taki would be sitting on papers he wanted or on a manuscript he wanted to revise. She would sometimes lean against his typewriter and ‘talk’ at him for up to ten minutes at a time or else would just sit ‘quietly gazing out of the window from the corner of the desk, as if to say, “The stuff you’re doing is a waste of time, Ray.”
Alexandre Dumas had a cat named Mysouff, which seemed to posess telepathic powers. While working as a clerk, he would set off each day at 9:30 a.m. accompanied by his cat up to a certain point. When he returned at 5:30 p.m. he would find the cat waiting for him at the same point. However, if Dumas was held up at the office, somehow the cat knew and would not wait. Incidentally, my own son Jack does a similar thing. When I get out of the elevator, which is a fair ways down the hall from my door, he begins meowing. Fairly loudly. I have asked all of my neighbors if he does the same when THEY get off the elevator. Unanimously, they have all told me that no, he does not. Even when my neighbor across the hall walks to within a few feet of my door... no meowing. Jack somehow knows if it is me or not.
Back to Dumas’ cat.... the telepathic cat’s successor, the white Mysouff II, was a less reliable pet. One day with the help of three of the family’s tame monkeys (each named after a literary critic), he broke into Dumas’ aviary and ate all his rare and valuable birds. Yep! A trial was held. The verdict? Mysouff II was sentenced to five years incarceration with the apes.

Victor Hugo had a cat named Chanoine and another named Gavroche.
Hmmm... isn’t this latter one the name of a character in his Les Miserables?
American novelist Patricia Highsmith had a cat named Spider.
British novelist Aldous Huxley was a cat lover, and declared “If you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is keep a pair of cats.” He went on to stipulate “Siamese by preference; for they are certainly the most ‘human’ of all the race of cats.”
‘Beat generation” writer Jack Kerouac had a cat named Tuffy and described his family as “my paralyzed mother, and my wife, and the ever-present kitties.”
Sci-fi writer H.P. Lovecraft owned a black cat that ate roast chestnuts and, Lovecraft believed, spoke in a language all of its own. This language, he held, had a variety of intonations, each of which had a different meaning, and even included “a special ’prr’p’ for the smell of roasted chestnuts, on which he doted.” The cat also used to play football and if Lovecraft tossed a rubber ball at him would send it flying back by lying on the floor and kicking the thing using all four paws at once.
Pulitzer prize winning U.S. novelist Margaret Mitchell (Gone With The Wind) had lots of cats. One was named Piedy, and she was followed by Hypatia and Lowpatia, the latter being a male whom Margaret taught to stand up and salute with his right paw beside his ear, being rewarded with cantaoupe, his favorite food. (possibly related to Hemingway’s cat Boise, mentioned earlier?)

Mark Twain was a cat lover. He deliberately gave his cats difficult names to teach his children to pronounce unusual words. They were called Apollinaris, Beelzebub, Blatherskite and Zoroaster. (the cats, not the children). Others included Sour Mash, Buffalo Bill, Stan, Stray Kit, Danbury, Billiards, Babylon, Amanda, Annanci, and Sindbad.
Twain was very fond of cats, saying that “They are the cleanest, cunnigest, and most intelligent things I know, outside the girl you love, of course.”
Unable to be without cats, he once rented two -- Sackcloth and Ashes – when away from home. He once said: “A home without a cat and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat, may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how could it prove its title?”

I must get home to mine!
Soon, I will be stepping off the elevator, and I will hear his welcoming meow.

When Florence Nightingale died at home on August 13, 1910, at the age of ninety, it was found that she had made provision for her cats in her will.

“The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
-- Mahatma Gandhi --