This delightful anthology gives us a teeming litter of literary tributes to the ever-fascinating, ever-mystifying cat.

The feline has inspired poetic adoration since the days of the pharaohs, and the poems collected here cover an astonishing range of periods, cultures, and styles. Poets across the continents and centuries have described the feline familyfrom kittens to old toms, pussycats to panthersdoing what they do best: sleeping, prowling, prancing, purring, sleeping some more, and gazing disdainfully at lesser beings like ourselves. Here are Yeatss Minnaloushe, Christopher Smarts Jeoffry, Lewis Carrolls Cheshire Cat, T. S. Eliots Rum Tum Tugger, William Blakes tyger and Rilkes panther. Here are tributes from Sufi mystics, medieval Chinese poets, and haiku masters of imperial Japan, from Chaucer, Shelley, Borges, Neruda, Dickinson, and Shakespeare. Here are the cats of Mother Goose, and the one who wore the hat for Dr. Seuss.

The Great Catwill delight cat lovers everywhere, celebrating as it does the beauty, the mystery, the gravity, the grace, and, of course, the unassailable superiority of the cat.