The article has been edited (by me) to fit my purposes . . .
Writers are sometimes stern and cold at heart — introverts who escape into their own solitary world, away from outward distractions that would somehow muddle their extraordinary work. Other times, writers just need a friend. And while they say that a dog is a man's best friend, these writers each found solace in another four-legged companion.
T.S. ELIOT
Aside from peppering his high Modernist poetry with allusions to feline friends, Eliot wrote a book of light verse called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a collection of 15 poems, dedicated to his godchildren, regarding the different personalities and eccentricities of cats. Names like Old Deuteronomy, the Rum Tum Tugger, and Mr. Mistoffelees should be familiar to people all around the world — the characters and poems were the inspiration for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running Broadway musical, Cats.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Hemingway and his family initially became infatuated with cats while living at Finca Vigía, their house in Cuba. During the writer's travels, he was gifted a six-toed (polydactyl) cat he named Snowball. Hemingway liked the little guy so much that in 1931, when he moved into his now-famous Key West home, he let Snowball run wild, creating a small colony of felines that populated the grounds. Today, some 40 to 50 six-toed descendants of Snowball are still allowed to roam around the house. Polydactyl felines are sometimes called “Hemingway Cats.”
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
Burroughs is known for his wild, drug-induced writings, but he had a softer side as well — especially for his cats. He penned an autobiographical novella, The Cat Inside, about the cats he owned throughout his life, and the final journal entry Burroughs wrote before he died referred to the pure love he had for his four pets:
“Only thing can resolve conflict is love, like I felt for Fletch and Ruski, Spooner, and Calico. Pure love. What I feel for my cats present and past. Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is. LOVE.”
MARK TWAIN
The great humorist and man of American letters was also a great cat lover. When his beloved black cat Bambino went missing, Twain took out an advertisement in the New York American offering a $5 reward to return the missing cat to his house at 21 5th Avenue in New York City. It described Bambino as “Large and intensely black; thick, velvety fur; has a faint fringe of white hair across his chest; not easy to find in ordinary light.”
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Though not overt, Yeats’ love for cats can be found in poems like “The Cat and the Moon,” where he uses the image of a cat to represent himself and the image of the moon to represent his muse. Yeats metaphorically transforms himself into the cat longing for his love that is indifferent to him.
PATRICIA HIGHSMITH
The author of Strangers on a Train once said “my imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.” But Highsmith nevertheless found a perfect way to let her imagination function with her many four-legged companions. She did virtually everything with her cats — she wrote next to them, she ate next to them, and she even slept next to them. She kept them by her side throughout her life until her death at her home in Locarno, Switzerland in 1995.
CHARLES DICKENS
One of most important and influential writers in history, Charles Dickens once said, “What greater gift than the love of a cat?” He would sit entranced for hours while writing, but when his furry friends needed some attention, they were notorious for extinguishing the flame on his desk candle. In 1862, he was so upset after the death of his favorite cat, Bob, that he had the feline’s paw stuffed and mounted to an ivory letter opener. He had the opener engraved saying, “C.D., In memory of Bob, 1862” so he could have a constant reminder of his old friend. The letter opener is now on display at the Berg Collection of English and American Literature at the New York Public Library.
RAYMOND CHANDLER
Chandler had an immense influence on detective fiction and came to define the tenets of hard-boiled noir. He used femme fatales, twisting plots, and whip-cracking wordplay in his evocative classics starring the detective Philip Marlowe, including The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. But it wasn’t all serious business for Chandler because — you guessed it — he really loved cats. His cat Taki gave him endless enjoyment, but also occasionally got on his nerves. Here’s a passage from a letter Chandler wrote to a friend about Taki:
“Our cat is growing positively tyrannical. If she finds herself alone anywhere she emits blood curdling yells until somebody comes running. She sleeps on a table in the service porch and now demands to be lifted up and down from it. She gets warm milk about eight o'clock at night and starts yelling for it about 7.30.”
STEPHEN J. DUNN
This beloved blogger, husband, and grandfather lives in a one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old farmhouse in north central Illinois with his wife, stepson, and their four cats. Stephen became paralyzed in 2009 due to a spinal cord disorder, and spends most of his day in bed working on his memoirs. The cats vie for his attention, and take turns napping with him while he writes. In 2015, he developed his so-called Equation of Life, based on the Five C's: Coffee + Cat + Computer + Cannabis = Contentment. Talking about cats, Stephen says, “I'm just grateful that they allow us to worship them.”
Mark Twain's cat Bambino
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