“I have written, how skilfully I cannot tell, on the manners and customs of the cat, his graces and calineries, the history of his subjugation of humankind. Through all the ages, even during the dark epoch of witchcraft and persecution, puss has maintained his supremacy, continued to breed and multiply, defying, when convenient, the laws of God and man, now our friend, now our enemy, now wild, now tame, the pet of the hearth or the tiger of the heath, but always free, always independent, always an anarchist who insists upon his rights, whatever the cost. The cat never forms soviets; he works alone.” (Apotheosis) The illustrations are many and beautiful. There is an exhaustive bibliography and an index and the contents are: By way of correcting a popular prejudice; Treating of traits; Ailurophobes and other cat-haters; The cat and the occult; The cat in folklore; The cat and the law; The cat in the theatre; The cat in music; The cat in art; The cat in fiction; The cat and the poet; Literary men who have loved cats; Apotheosis.
“The book is a revelation concerning the more or less important part which cats have played in history and literature.”
+ Bookm 52:367 Ja ’21 160w
“The suggestive ingenuity of its title is matched by the far-reaching skill with which he has amassed and arrayed his facts so as to make them into a continuous story that blends both fact and the imagination.” E. F. Edgett
+ Boston Transcript p2 D 11 ’20 1600w
“Mr Van Vechten is less fortunate in his choice of pictures than in his text.” J. W. Krutch
+ Nation 112:sup243 F 9 ’21 780w
Reviewed by E. L. Pearson
Review 3:648 D 29 ’20 150w