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T. S. Elliot - Cats
Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965), was a poet, dramatist, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are the poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday and Four Quartets; the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party; and the essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent".
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is a collection of whimsical poems by T. S. Eliot about feline psychology and sociology. Its contents are widely known as the basis for the record-setting musical Cats.
The poems themselves were written during the 1930s and included by Eliot, under his assumed name "Old Possum", in letters to his godchildren.[1] They were collected and published in 1939 with cover illustrations by the author, and quickly re-published in 1940, illustrated in full by Nicolas Bentley. An edition was published in 1982 that featured illustrations by famed illustrator Edward Gorey.
The contents of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, along with the Name of the featured cat when appropriate, are:
- The Naming of Cats
- The Old Gumbie Cat (Jennyanydots)
- Growltiger's Last Stand
- The Rum Tum Tugger
- The Song of the Jellicles
- Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer
- Old Deuteronomy
- The Pekes and the Pollicles (Great Rumpuscat)
- Mr. Mistoffelees
- Macavity: The Mystery Cat
- Gus: The Theatre Cat
- Bustopher Jones: The Cat about Town
- Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat
- The Ad-dressing of Cats
- Cat Morgan Introduces Himself (added in the 1952 edition)
Eliot was born in the United States, moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at age 25), and became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39. Of his nationality and its role in his work, Eliot said: "[My poetry] wouldn’t be what it is if I’d been born in England, and it wouldn’t be what it is if I’d stayed in America. It’s a combination of things. But in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America."[4]