When Bentley submitted his initial drawings they were unanimously approved by the Faber Book Committee, with one suggestion: that the cat “ought possibly to look less worried, as his face at present suggests anxiety more than contemplation”. This first edition, however, lacked illustrations inside the book and so Nicholas Bentley was commissioned to illustrate a new edition in 1940, and these drawings are the Practical Cats most of us know today. Eliot’s manuscript copy of ‘The Song of the Jellicles’Įliot had hoped that Ralph Hodgson (‘The Man in White Spats’) would illustrate the first edition of the book, but Hodgson was unavailable and so Eliot illustrated the front cover and dust jacket himself. The broadcast proved a great success with repeat broadcasts and two new sets of readings the following year, establishing an audience eager to see the poems in print. In December 1937 five of the Practical Cats were broadcast by the BBC on Christmas Day, with the poems read by broadcaster and scientist Geoffrey Tandy. Eliot) but Eliot followed it up with further poems written and sent on periodically to the Tandy and Faber families, Bonamy Dobree, and John Hayward. Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats didn’t make the final book (it can be found in Volume 1 of The Complete Poems of T. Nobody wants to make a fool of himself when he might be better employed.’ And this sort of thing is flat if it is flat, than serious verse. ‘I am more and more doubtful of my ability to write a successful book of this kind, and I had rather find out early that I can’t do it, than waste a lot of time for nothing. He sent Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats to Geoffrey Faber, together with drawings and a covering memo: In March 1936, Eliot was unsure of how successful he would be in writing children’s verse. It would take over three years for the book to materialise, with the dog poems discarded in favour of a book solely about cats. In their Spring 1936 catalogue, Faber & Faber announced Mr Eliot’s Book of Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats as Recited to Him by the Man in White Spats. Eliot and the Practical Cat ‘go in for COUNTRY LIFE’ in a letter to Tom Faber, Between 19, poems were written and sent to friends and their children for comment, before their eventual inclusion in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. There followed further letters to Eliot’s godson introducing the Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats, and the Practical Cat who can be seen trying out country life pursuits with Eliot in the drawings illustrating the letter. My Cat is a Lilliecat Hubvsouly… ITS NAME IS JELLYLORUM’. ‘I am glad you have a Cat’ Eliot wrote, ‘but I do not believe it is So remarkable a cat as My cat. It’s believed Eliot first put pen to paper with his cats in a 1931 letter to his young godson, Tom Faber, who had written to Eliot about his cat. The embroidery, made in 1894, shows a ribbon-collared cat ready to pounce on a ball of wool. Eliot in 1894Īn embroidery made by a young T.
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