Product Description

Cats! Some are sane, some are mad and some are good and some are bad. Meet magical Mr Mistoffelees, sleepy Old Deuteronomy and curious Rum Tum Tugger. But you'll be lucky to meet Macavity because Macavity's not there! In 1925 T.S. Eliot became co-director of Faber and Faber, who remain his publishers to this day. Throughout the 1930s he composed the now famous poems about Macavity, Old Deuteronomy, Mr Mistoffelees and many other cats, under the name of 'Old Possum'. In 1981 Eliot's poems were set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber as "Cats" which went on to become the longest-running Broadway musical in history. This new edition, published on the 70th anniversary of the book and on the 80th anniversary of Faber and Faber, contains original colour illustrations by the award-winning illustrator of "The Gruffalo", Axel Scheffler.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1137 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 80 pages

About the Author
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was born in St Louis, Missouri, USA. He settled in England in 1915 and published his first book of poems in 1917. Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Axel Scheffler was born in 1957 in Hamburg, Germany. He has achieved worldwide acclaim for his children's book illustration and has created many bestsellers including the award-winning The Gruffalo. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

A perfect Present
Having just received my first copy of this from Amazon I am now ordering further copies to give as presents to all my nieces and nephews - I may even try and persuade my own youngest children that they are not too old to be read too! The poems themselves are of course classics but Axel Scheffler's beautiful (and funny) illustrations are what will make children treasure this book and demand that it be read and re-read. If you are still in the habit of reading to your children then I urge you to treat yourself and them with this lovely book. You will not regret it.

Wonderful illustrations
Just seen this book in town and rushed home to buy it (at almost half the price!) My grandchildren love all the books they have with Axel Scheffler illustrations - The Gruffalo, Stick Man etc.- and I know this will be a great favourite. Can't wait to read it with them!

Classic cats slink stylishly into the 21st century.
I remember these poems from my own childhood, and loved Bentley's pictures but my children have grown up with Axel Scheffler's Gruffalo and other Julia Donaldson titles and so were attracted immediately to this book by the familiar illustrations and with good reason. And what a wonderful selection of poems we they found inside, accompanied by Scheffler's depictions of the different cats in his easy-going and good-humoured style. T S Eliot's verse is rich with rhythm and rhyme and language that reminds you of a bygone era, and yet the Cats with their many temperaments remain bright, fun and appealing three generations later and it's no wonder that this strong collection sparked a musical that endures equally well. A treasure that no child's bookshelf should be without, and a brilliant gift for a cat-lover of any age.