Margaret Atwood

‘I have put myself on a list for two Siberian kittens. I will have cat hammocks. I will have scratching posts. I will not allow myself to be distressed by shredded upholstery,' writes Margaret Atwood in her introduction to this illustrated anthology on cats.

For thousands of years, cats have been venerated and mistrusted in equal measure. Through memoir, fiction, letters and poems, the writers in these pages celebrate cats and their curious ways. As Hemingway wrote: one cat leads to another.'

Includes contributions from Alice Walker, Edward Gorey, Mary Gaitskill, Caitlin Moran, Ernest Hemingway, Nikola Tesla, John Keats, Muriel Spark, Lynne Truss, Hilaire Belloc, Guy du Maupassant, Rebecca West and more.

An Anthology

On Cats

From ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’

Jiji

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’ 

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

The Cat on My Shoulder: Writers and their Cats

I’ve always had at least one cat. At the moment I have seven. I love them dearly, but I sometimes feel they're largely an irritation, and I seem to spend most of my time screaming at them not to do things, not that it does any good.

On Cats quotes

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