Brown, editor, Classic Cat Stories (2020)

Becky Brown, Editor.
Classic Cat Stories.
Book Series: Macmillan Collector's Library.
London: Pan Macmillan, 2020.

Book Information : Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

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Contents of Classic Cat Stories :

[# indicates stories also included in Tesdell, ed., Cat Stories, 2011.]

1. # Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), "The Cat That Walked by Himself", from Just So Stories, 1902.
   Also reprinted in: Rudyard Kipling, Stories and Poems, edited by Daniel Karlin, Oxford World's Classics, 2015.
   
2. Mark Twain (1835–1910), "Dick Baker's Cat".
3. Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), "The Afflictions of an English Cat", translated by Carl Van Vechten.
4. # Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930), "The Cat", first collected in Understudies: Short Stories, 1901 [Archive.org].
   Some of Freeman's other works are currently in-print in these editions:
   • A Mary Wilkins Freeman Reader, edited by Mary Reichardt, 1997.
   • A New-England Nun: and Other Stories, edited by Sandra A. Zagarell, Penguin Classics, 2000.
5. E. Nesbit (1858–1924), "The Dragon Tamers" from The Book of Dragons, 1901.
6. # Edgar Allen Poe (1809–1849), "The Black Cat", 1843.
   Also reprinted in: Edgar Allen Poe, Poetry and Tales, edited by Patrick F. Quinn, Library of America, 1984.
7. Saki [Hector Hugh Munro] (1870–1916), "The Philanthropist and the Happy Cat".
   Also reprinted in: Saki/Munro, The Complete Saki, Penguin Twentieth Century Classics, 1982, 1997.
   Also reprinted in: Saki/Munro, The Complete Short Stories, Penguin Books, 2000.
8. Ethel Colburn Mayne (1865–1941), "The Man of the House".
9. E. F. Benson (1867–1940), "There Arose a King" from The Countess of Lowndes Square, and Other Stories, 1920.
10. Compton Mackenzie (1883–1972), "No. 25 to be Let or Sold".
    (Comment: Mackenzie's story about an old man living in an empty house is echoed in Doris Lessing's story "An Old Woman and Her Cat" reprinted in Tesdell's Cat Stories.)
11. Charles Perrault (1628–1703), "Puss in Boots", 1697, translated by G. M. Gent.
12. Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927), "Dick Dunkerman's Cat".
13. M. R. James (1862–1936), "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral".
14. E. Nesbit (1858–1924), "The White Cat".
15. # Damon Runyon (1880–1946), "Lillian", from Guys and Dolls, 1932.
16. # Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943), "The King of the Cats", first published in 1929.
    Also reprinted in: Stephen Vincent Benét, Twenty-Five Short Stories, Garden City, New York: The Sun Dial Press, 1943.
    Also reprinted in: American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps, edited by Peter Straub, Library of America, 2009.
17. L. M. Montgomery (1874–1942), "Abel and His Great Adventure".
18. E. F. Benson (1867–1940), "Puss-Cat", 1911, first collected in The Countess of Lowndes Square, and Other Stories, 1920.
19. H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), "The Cats of Ulthar", 1920.
20. St. John Lucas (1879–1934), "The Pale Cat".
21. # Walter de la Mare (1873–1956), "Broomsticks", from Broomsticks and Other Tales, 1925 [Archive.org].
    Collections of works by Walter de la Mare:
    • Short Stories 1895-1926, edited by Giles de la Mare, 1996.
    • Short Stories 1927-1956, edited by Giles de la Mare, 2001.
    • Short Stories for Children [includes Broomsticks and Other Tales], edited by Giles de la Mare, 2006.
    • Stories, Essays and Poems, Everyman's Library #940, 1941.
    • Collected Poems, 1941.
22. W. L. Alden (1837–1908), "The Yellow Terror".
23. # Saki [Hector Hugh Munro] (1870–1916), "Tobermory", first published in 1909, first collected in The Chronicles of Clovis, 1911 [Archive.org].
    Also reprinted in: Saki/Munro, The Complete Saki, Penguin Twentieth Century Classics, 1982, 1997.
    Also reprinted in: Saki/Munro, The Complete Short Stories, Penguin Books, 2000.

[# indicates stories also included in Tesdell, ed., Cat Stories, 2011.]

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Comments :

Last year I read a similar collection of cat stories:

• Diana Secker Tesdell, editor. Cat Stories. Book Series: Everyman's Library Pocket Classics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (Penguin Random House), 2011.
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  My post for that book is here; in that post I also listed all the stories in that book.

Seven stories in Brown's Classic Cat Stories also appear in Tesdell's Cat Stories. So there are 16 stories in Brown's Classic Cat Stories that don't appear in Tesdell's Cat Stories which tends to have more stories originally published more recently (since 1950). The 7 stories in both collections are those by: Kipling, Freeman, Poe, Runyon, Benet, de la Mare, and Saki's "Tobomory".

Note the countries of origin of the authors in Brown's Classic Cat Stories :

• British Isles (England, Scotland, Ireland) : Kipling, Saki, de la Mare, Mackenzie, Mayne, Benson, Jerome, James, Lucas.
• United States : Poe, Freeman, Twain, Benet, Runyon, Lovecraft, Alden.
• Canada : Montgomery.
• France : Balzac, Perrault.

In my earlier post for Tesdell's Cat Stories I observed that these collections were selected from a relatively narrow range of world literature: mostly works originally written in English, plus a very few from French and Italian; nothing from Germany, Russia, Latin America, China, Japan, or elsewhere. Granted, the works originally written in German or Japanese that I am aware of are not short stories but instead longer novels and memoirs. I can't understand the heavy British Isles and North American orientation of these collections other than as monolingual provincialism.

I recommend these works from Japan:

• Natsume Sōseki, I Am a Cat (2001)
• Takashi Hiraide, The Guest Cat (2014)
• Mayumi Inaba, Mornings With My Cat Mii (2024)

I have't read any of Haruki Murakami's novels yet, some of which include a cat character; I've only read some of his short stories so far, none of which involved a cat (except perhaps for one story where the protagonist goes looking for a cat but doesn't find it; is the absent cat also a metaphor for something else? maybe?).

I look forward to reading E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr.

Another cat story collection that recently came to my attention:

• The Dover Anthology of Cat Stories. Dover Publications, 2015.
  [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]

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