Thomas Hood

This is a unique celebration of that most beautiful and self-possessed of creatures--the cat. More than 50 poems are included, reflecting every feline mood: the comic, the aristocratic, the lazy, the cunning, the fierce, the inscrutable. Lovers of cats and lovers of poetry will be delighted by the wide-ranging nature of the collection by poets such as T.S. Elliot, Ted Hughes, W.B. Yeats, William Wordsworth, Edward Lear and many others. One of the most attractive features of the book is the choice of pictures. A stunning selection of drawings and paintings by such artists and illustrators as Renoir, Manet, Picasso, Hogarth, Cruikshank and Lear add to the charm of the verse, making this a book to be treasured by cat lovers everywhere.

It's hard to accept that this charming book is over a hundred years old. Why? Because it is an affectionate pastiche of earlier "chap books". With Robert Seaver's wonderfully naive woodcuts we're in on the joke, of course, yet these remarkable images are themselves a century old. He illustrates this punny tale with relish and humour. Check out his equally marvellous John Gilpin

Thomas Hood (1799-1845), the English poet, married Jane Reynolds.

unpaginated catalogue bound in at the end " Ward Lock & Co's List of Standard Reference Volumes, Popular Useful Books, Approved Educational Works, Illustrated Gift Books, &c.

A dog of Flanders [by] Louisa de la Ramé (Ouida). The attorney's revenge. The dafaulter [by] T. Hood. [Purloined Letter]( [by] E. A. Poe. How I set about paying my debts. The main truck [by] W. Leggett. Christmas at Thompson hall [by] A. Trollope. The first and last dinner [by] W. Mudford. The involuntary experimentalist.