Horace Walpole's cat
Details
Type of record: Book
Title: Horace Walpole's cat
Classmark: Bedford Collection B391
Creator(s): Frayling, Christopher
Additional creator(s): Bentley, R (1708-1782) (Illustrator); Blake, William (1757-1827) (Illustrator); Hale, Kathleen (1898-2000) (Illustrator); Bedford, John Victor (1941-2019) (Former owner)
Related people: Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771; Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771; Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797; Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Publication city: New York, N.Y
Date(s): 2009
Language: English
Size and medium: 79 pages
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/730631
Printed items catalogue: https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=44LEE_INST:VU1&docid=alma991019896854805181
Description
Includes bibliographical references (page 78) and index.
"The tragic death of Walpole's cat and the Thomas Gray poem written in her honor: the true story of what happened, and a look at the lively social and cultural scene in the eighteenth century. This delightful compendium focuses on one of the best-loved poems in the English language, but in the process it takes the reader on an engaging romp through the literary, intellectual, and cultural world of the eighteenth century. It brings alive a host of engaging characters: Horace Walpole himself (one of the great letter writers of all time, wit, raconteur; the curmudgeonly Dr. Johnson (who nevertheless had 'a very fine cat indeed') and his sometimes recalcitrant biographer James Boswell; and a cast of 'handsome cats, ' including Selima and Zama. In February 1747, Selima the tabby fell into a Chinese blue and white porcelain tub in Walpole's house in London's Mayfair and never returned to dry land. The poem by Thomas Gray, 'Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold-fishes, '
was written as her mock epitaph. Here is the true history of the event, and a look at the sparkling social and cultural life of the period. It is beautifully illustrated with Richard Bentley's original series of designs for the poem, William Blake's wonderful watercolors of some fifty years later, and the unpublished color illustrations produced in the 1940s by the noted children's book illustrator Kathleen Hale, of Orlando the Marmalade Cat fame."--Publisher's website.
Prologue -- Hodge -- Patapan -- Selima -- A favourite [i.e., favorite] cat -- The first designs : Richard Bentley (1751-52) -- This lofty verse -- Tailpiece -- William Blake's watercolours [i.e., watercolors] (1797-98) -- Kathleen Hale's illustrations (1944).
Provenance
Leeds University Library copy at Bedford Collection B391: From the John Evan Bedford Library, gifted in 2019. Twenty-first-century pictorial bookplate on front pastedown: John Evan Bedford. Former reference: MS/50.
Access and usage
Access
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