Diana Secker Tesdell, editor.
Cat Stories.
Everyman's Library Pocket Classics.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf (Penguin Random House), 2011.
Book Information: Publisher;
Google Books;
Amazon.com.
Book Series: Everyman's Library Pocket Classics Series.
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Contents of Cat Stories :
~~~~~~~~~~ People and Their Cats ~~~~~~~~~~
- Alice Adams (1926–1999), "The Islands", from The Stories of Alice Adams, 2002.
- Maeve Brennan (1917–1993), "I See You, Bianca", from The Rose Garden: Short Stories, 2000.
- Damon Runyon (1880–1946), "Lillian", from Guys and Dolls, 1932.
- Doris Lessing (1919–2013), "An Old Woman and Her Cat", from The Temptation of Jack Orkney and Other Stories, 1972.
Also reprinted in: Doris Lessing, Stories, Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics, 2008.
Maybe reprinted in [I haven't been able to verify this using online sources] : Doris Lessing, On Cats, London: Flamingo, 2002; New York: HarperCollins, 2008.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
- 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.
- P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975), "Cats Will Be Cats", from Mulliner Nights, 1933.
[Archive.org; Amazon.com.]
~~~~~~~~~~ Cats and Their People ~~~~~~~~~~
- 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.
- 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:
- 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.
- Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995), "Ming's Biggest Prey", first collected in The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder, 1975.
Also reprinted in: The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith, W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
Also reprinted in: Under a Dark Angel's Eye: The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith, Virago, 2021.
- 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.
- Neil Gaiman (b.1960), "The Price", from Smoke and Mirrors, 1998.
~~~~~~~~~~ Fanciful Felines ~~~~~~~~~~
- Fritz Leiber (1910–1992), "Space-Time for Springers", from Gummitch and Friends, 1992.
Also reprinted in: Fritz Leiber, Selected Stories, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Charles N. Brown, San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2010.
- Italo Calvino (1923–1985), "The Garden of Stubborn Cats", originally collected in Marcovaldo or The Seasons in the City, 1963; English translation 1983.
- Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951), "Ancient Sorceries", first collected in John Silence: Physician Extraordinary, 1908 [Archive.org, USA edition 1909].
Also reprinted in: Algernon Blackwood, Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories, edited by S. T. Joshi, Penguin Classics, New York: Penguin Books, 2002.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Also reprinted in: Algernon Blackwood, The Wendigo and Other Stories, edited by Aaron Worth, Oxford World's Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Also reprinted in: Algernon Blackwood, The Complete John Silence Stories, edited by S. T. Joshi, Dover Horror Classics, Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1997, 2011.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
- 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.
- Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018), "Schrödinger's Cat", first published in Universe 5, 1974.
- Angela Carter (1940–1992), "Puss-in-Boots", first collected in The Bloody Chamber, 1979.
Recently reprinted: Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Penguin Books, 2015.
- Steven Millhauser (b.1943), "Cat 'n' Mouse", first collected in Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories, New York: Alfred A. Knopf (Random House), 2008; reprinted New York: Vintage Books (Random House), 2009.
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Afterword (last updated 09 June 2024): What stories were left out from Tesdell's book?
A little while after reading Tesdell's book I wondered: What stories were left out? After all, in compiling anthologies there are space limitations, and the editor must certainly have had an abundance of stories to choose from, and some of them would likely be considered the equal or even superior by some readers to those included by the editor.
One can begin to get an idea of this from another recently published anthology of cat stories:
What is the overlap between the books edited Tesdell and Brown? Out of 19 stories in Tesdell and 23 stories in Brown, they share 7 stories: those by Poe, Freeman, de la Mare, Kipling, Saki's "Tobomory", Benet, and Runyon. Otherwise Brown's anthology seems oriented towards older "classic" stories while Tesdell includes several more recently written stories (for example those first published since 1950 by Calvino, Leiber, Lessing, Le Guin, Highsmith, Carter, Adams, Brennan, Gaiman, Millhauser).
I would also like to note that there is a strong Japanese cat literature that is completely ignored by these two anthologies edited by Tesdell and Brown. For example, see my posts for
Sōseki, I Am a Cat (2001);
Soseki Natsume's I Am A Cat: The Manga Edition (2021);
Hiraide, The Guest Cat (2014). What else is there to be found in the literatures of Russia, China, India, Africa, Latin America?
A random list of other cat stories in neither Tesdell or Brown that I have stumbled across:
- Colette (1873–1954), "The Cat", 19??.
Reprinted in: Colette, Gigi, and The Cat, Translated by Roger Stenhouse, London: Vintage Classics (Penguin Books), 2001.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Note: It appears "The Cat" was not included in The Collected Stories of Colette, Edited by Robert G. Phelps, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984. London: Vintage Classics (Penguin Books), 2003.
[Publisher USA; Publisher UK; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
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