Just call him Saki

The British writer Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916) wrote his many clever short stories under the pen name Saki. Among Saki’s stories is “Tobermory,” whose title character is a cat who can talk.

Some of the human characters tease Tobermory about his having an affair with a lady cat who lives at the stable. Then it dawns on them that the cat, climbing around in windowsills as cats are inclined to do, is all too aware of their affairs.

The Jungle Book man

The British author Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his poetry, but he is probably best remembered for The Jungle Book, which features several big cat characters, such as the panther Bagheera and the fierce tiger Shere Khan.

He also wrote the wonderful story “The Cat Who Walked by Himself,” in which Man and Woman tame all manner of animals but don’t quite succeed in taming the cat. The cat finally agrees to live in the humans’ house and catch mice, but he is never completely tamed. He is “the cat who walks by himself.” As you might expect, Kipling was very fond of cats.

Sandburg and fog

The beloved American poet Carl Sandburg wrote one of the world’s most famous cat poems—though it really isn’t about cats. It is “Fog,” published in 1916, and brief enough to quote here: “The fog comes / on little cat feet. / It sits looking / over harbor and city / on silent haunches / and then moves on.” People who have never heard the name Carl Sandburg have certainly heard of fog coming “on little cat feet.”

Cat in the Poe house

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) gave the world some enchanting poetry and some truly chilling horror stories, none more memorable than “The Black Cat.” The tale is narrated by a man who is clearly going insane, as he proves by cutting out the eye of his beloved cat, Pluto. He also murders his wife and bricks up her body inside a wall, assuming no one will ever find her.

But (sorry to give away the ending of the story!) the murder is revealed when the man and the police investigating his wife’s disappearance hear screams from behind the wall that turn out to be the pitiful cries of Pluto, who was also bricked up in the wall.