Cat Stories
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Cat Stories’
A fox terrier spies what looks like a hapless victim – until he gets up close.
Jerome K. Jerome’s comic travelogue ‘Three Men in a Boat’ is subtitled ‘to say nothing of the dog’. In this extract, the dog Montmorency - a fox terrier - plays a starring role, but unfortunately not a particularly glorious one.
A cat’s affection is not easy to win, but the rewards make the effort worthwhile.
Théophile Gautier was a French artist, critic and writer whose friends included Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, and whose many admirers have included TS Eliot and Oscar Wilde. His ‘Ménagerie intime’ (1869) includes fond recollections of the many cats in his life.
A council of mice comes up with a plan to outsmart the Cat, but volunteers are a bit thin on the ground.
This tale dates back no earlier than the thirteenth century, though it takes the form of one of Aesop’s Fables from ancient Greece. The author was Odo, a clergyman from Cheriton in Kent, who spent several years on the Continent before coming home in 1233 and settling down to his family estates. His fable reflects, he tells us, his experience of monks chafing under corrupt abbots.
(That’s cat-tails, obviously.) And who ever said cats were unpredictable?
Charles Fox was a Whig politician who served briefly as Foreign Secretary. A staunch opponent of King George III, he once dressed himself in the colours of the American revolutionary army. But he was also friends with Prince George, the King’s son.