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T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is one of the most celebrated collections of humorous animal poetry in twentieth-century English literature. First published by Faber and Faber in 1939, the collection presents a memorable cast of feline characters through witty, playful and highly rhythmic verse.
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T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is one of the most celebrated collections of humorous animal poetry in twentieth-century English literature. First published by Faber and Faber in 1939, the collection presents a memorable cast of feline characters through witty, playful and highly rhythmic verse. This 1956 Faber and Faber edition is the 12th impression, an attractive mid-century edition of Eliot’s enduring classic. Contemporary bibliographical records confirm the 1956 publication and 12th-impression status.
Written under Eliot’s affectionate nickname “Old Possum”, the poems transform ordinary cats into characters with distinct personalities, habits and social identities. Among the best known are Macavity, the mysterious and elusive criminal; Mr. Mistoffelees, the magical conjuring cat; Rum Tum Tugger, the irrepressible troublemaker; Old Deuteronomy; Bustopher Jones; Gus the Theatre Cat; and Skimbleshanks, the railway cat. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats contains fourteen poems, combining sophisticated wordplay with an accessible, theatrical style.
Although often associated with children’s literature, Eliot’s poems operate on several levels, with clever rhymes, literary references and observations of human behaviour beneath their comic feline disguises. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats has also had an extraordinary cultural afterlife. In 1981, Andrew Lloyd Webber adapted Eliot’s poems into the hugely successful stage musical Cats, bringing characters such as Macavity and Mr. Mistoffelees to an international audience.
This 1956 Faber and Faber impression is particularly appealing to collectors of T. S. Eliot, twentieth-century poetry and classic children’s literature, as well as admirers of the long publishing history of one of Eliot’s most accessible and entertaining works. It represents an early post-war edition of a book that has remained in print and continually rediscovered by new generations of readers.
Condition: Good – Light shelf wear on yellow cloth boards with rubbing/wear on edges. Prior ownership inscription on front end page. Foxing present.
