The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in no other way. - Mark Twain

April 9, 2011 6:27 PM

Writers and Kitties That's pretty much it. Authors and their cats. My favorite is Mark Twain.
posted by desjardins (51 comments total)

One of my favorites.

(K is for kitties and authors who rest, L is for lap - get your paws off my chest.)
posted by wanderingmind at 6:34 PM on April 9, 2011 [13 favorites]

Famous authors and their dogs.
posted by stbalbach at 6:45 PM on April 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

A couple of these are certain to show up soon on Cute Boys With Cats, my hands-down favorite tumblr ever.
posted by you're a kitty! at 6:45 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Those captions. Dear Lord.

Kitty should ask its literate companion what commas are for.

(Commas don't do that, kitty! That's a bad kitty!)
posted by Sys Rq at 6:53 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, one more for the cat trifecta.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 6:55 PM on April 9, 2011

Cute overload.
posted by Forktine at 6:59 PM on April 9, 2011

I particularly love this one with Haruki Murakami, since my cat is named after him.
posted by grapesaresour at 6:59 PM on April 9, 2011

Damn.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:00 PM on April 9, 2011

Even in the age of typewriters, cats tried to place themselves between you and the keyboard.
posted by maryr at 7:01 PM on April 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

The pictures of Raymond Chandler and Camus were perfect.
posted by Neofelis at 7:07 PM on April 9, 2011

The one of T.S. Eliot was a big cheat.
posted by lollusc at 7:09 PM on April 9, 2011

I was also irate about the Eliot "photo," but so far have had no luck turning up one of Eliot with an actual kitty. This is rather puzzling, actually.
posted by thomas j wise at 7:13 PM on April 9, 2011

Now someone needs to create Cute Writer Boys With Cats...SWOON!
posted by xenophile at 7:35 PM on April 9, 2011

mew mew mew mew mew. as a writer with kitties, mew. i love this.
posted by millipede at 7:38 PM on April 9, 2011

I'm not a big tumblr fan in general but I really enjoyed this.
posted by shelleycat at 7:45 PM on April 9, 2011

So, uh, is it fair to assume, based on this photograph, that Beckett's Waiting for Godot is really about a cat and a dog stuck at home while their master is out for the day?

'Cause I'm seriously thinking it might be. I'm gonna have to reread it with that in mind.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:49 PM on April 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

I like the one of Philip K. Dick's cat looking askance at him. Perfect for a Sunday morning when our cat biscuited me and then proceeded to sneeze in my face.
posted by arcticseal at 7:51 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

this is just to say

I have petted
the kittens
that were on
this tree stump

and which
you were probably
saving
for later pettings

forgive me
they were adorable
so tiny
and so fluffy
posted by palomar at 8:26 PM on April 9, 2011 [15 favorites]

this is just to say

i have soiled
the hatchet
that was in
the tree stump

and which
you were probably
saving
for kindling

forgive me
it was so shiny
so sharp
and those kittens said they were going to eat your face off while you slept
posted by Sys Rq at 8:36 PM on April 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

related (not as good, imho): http://musicianswithcats.tumblr.com
posted by girlhacker at 8:43 PM on April 9, 2011

Camus cat should have been la peste. (They all really are plagues, including mine)
posted by francesca too at 8:55 PM on April 9, 2011

Lovecraft was pretty much exactly what I would have expected. P.K. Dick somehow makes me like the guy more.
posted by brennen at 9:15 PM on April 9, 2011

So apparently writers prefer cats to dogs. Never something I'd thought about, but it seems pretty obvious. (I'm basing this on two blogs: not science.)
posted by kozad at 9:18 PM on April 9, 2011

No Pixel?
posted by galadriel at 9:55 PM on April 9, 2011

Missing, I think:

Borges and Beppo (mocking posterity with his belly), the cat he wrote some wonderful verses about.

Cordwainer Smith and C'mell, er, I mean Melanie, and Griselda. You can't talk about writer-kitty pairs without those two, come on.
posted by Iosephus at 10:20 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, crap, I think they don't like hotlinking. Trying again:

B & B.

CS & C'm.
posted by Iosephus at 10:28 PM on April 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I love that PKD photo. Animals are a sad theme in his work.
posted by unmake at 11:10 PM on April 9, 2011

The writer's kitty I'd really love to see -- if we could go back in time to the 1700s and take a picture -- is Christopher Smart's cat, Jeoffry, who is immortalized in Fragment B, Part 4, of Smart's poem Jubilate Agno. The 74 lines devoted to Jeoffry begin, fittingly enough, with For I will consider my cat Jeoffry...
posted by amyms at 12:11 AM on April 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

The Beckett photo is from the set of his film, Film. It's a jokey shot of a big cat and small dog together in the same basket.
posted by Bromius at 12:29 AM on April 10, 2011

I was actually surprised at how many French writers had kitties. Cats are generally not favored pets in France, in my experience...
posted by LMGM at 1:40 AM on April 10, 2011

This "let's get outta here, I wanna goooo" look is priceless. must have been Cocteau's voice, or something.
posted by Namlit at 1:53 AM on April 10, 2011

I was actually surprised at how many French writers had kitties

Writers are weird
Oh wait...
posted by Namlit at 1:54 AM on April 10, 2011

Louis-Ferdinand Céline and his kitty shocked by the madness of war.

I'm not sure what to think about that picture. Knowing nothing about the man, but having read a couple of his novels, I'd always imagined him to be like this bilious black thundercloud of nihilistic rage, so the photo somehow humanizes him. But at the same time, I kind of fear for the cat.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:05 AM on April 10, 2011

Mark Twain and a cat: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six
posted by dhens at 3:23 AM on April 10, 2011

I don't know who this guy is, but I'm pretty sure it's not William Faulkner. TinEye turned up nothing.
posted by cropshy at 5:40 AM on April 10, 2011

I was a little flummoxed by the painting of Sir Walter Scott then I realized he must be sitting at a partner's desk, hence the drawers face us. I have the dog and the cat watching over me as I write, now I just need the suit of armor poised to impale me if I attempt to leave my desk before churning out the requisite 10,000 words.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:01 AM on April 10, 2011

They are missing my favourite writer-with-a-cat, Georges Perec.
posted by kandinski at 6:27 AM on April 10, 2011

Not missing.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:50 AM on April 10, 2011

I clicked expecting this and wasn't disappointed.
posted by rlk at 6:51 AM on April 10, 2011

Pity no Hodge.
posted by IndigoJones at 7:25 AM on April 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

All right, Faulkner, what's up with that baby head on a pedestal?
posted by nosila at 7:34 AM on April 10, 2011

I love these. It's like a little trip through history, guided by cats, who are immortal. Decades ago, men and women dressed and behaved very differently, whereas their cats were just as ridiculous as they've always been and will always be.
posted by ORthey at 8:09 AM on April 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I have so many requests for this site. Top two: Terry Pratchett and Jim Butcher with their cats.
posted by misha at 9:36 AM on April 10, 2011

definitely NOT william faulkner but whomever that guy is, he looks like a young MICHAEL PALIN
posted by liza at 9:48 AM on April 10, 2011

A friend gave me some books on cats and their writers a while back, and I wanted to share the titles in case someone has the chance to read them and enjoy the pictures. These are packed away right now, else I'd be able to say which ones definitely have portraits in them. The MacDonald book has fewer, iirc. It's a contemplation by him on his cats.

Cat people by Bill Hayward

The Cat on my Shoulder by Lisa Angowski Rogak

The House Guests by John D. MacDonald
posted by bleary at 9:57 AM on April 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wonder if the site accepts submissions?
posted by bleary at 9:57 AM on April 10, 2011

Sartre is like the nemesis of Inspector Gadget in this one.

Cat and Oates are just lovely.
posted by ersatz at 10:20 AM on April 10, 2011

Wow. How wonderful! I was really hoping to find a picture of Pablo Neruda and kitty, though.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 10:38 AM on April 10, 2011

Twain. Cat. Pool table.

Fun Twain quote about cats:
You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.
- A Tramp Abroad

Here is a page of great Twain cat quotes.
posted by dancestoblue at 2:07 PM on April 10, 2011

I got a kitten for my 13th birthday that I named Beelzebub, mostly because I liked the sound of the word which I'd heard on a family trip to the Witch Museum in Salem. I was quite pleased to learn later that Mark Twain also had a cat named Beelzebub, which he named so in order to teach his children to say difficult to pronounce words.
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 6:00 PM on April 10, 2011

Gorey was just having a snooze at his desk when it started raining cats...
posted by Omnomnom at 11:09 AM on April 11, 2011