husbands, but none of them ever mattered as much as her Chartreux cats, and her short story La Chatte reflects that passion. Mark Twain so loved cats that, when he went on holiday, he rented kittens to play with. L.M. Montgomery dedicated a novel to a beloved cat, Sir Winston Churchill claimed that his cat Nelson contributed to the war effort, and macho Ernest Hemingway turned into a total softie when it came to the more than twenty cats who shared his homes. Margaret Mitchell underwent the publicity of the film of Gone with the Wind with Old Timer at her side. Doris Lessing wrote movingly of her disabled cat, and Dame Lynley Dodd was inspired by two family pets when she created the memorable Scarface Claw and Slinky Malinki.
The book also includes fascinating anecdotes about literary cats – in hotels, book shops, theatres, nursery rhymes and stories. This is a book for anyone who loves cats and who also loves great writing.
Speaker Biography
Susannah Fullerton, OAM, FRSN, has been President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for thirty years. She is the author of several books about Jane Austen, and also of 'Brief Encounters: Literary travellers in Australia'. Susannah gives talks around Australia on famous writers and their works. She leads popular literary tours overseas and publishes a free monthly newsletter, 'Notes from a Book Addict'. Her new book, 'Great Writers and the Cats Who Owned Them', is published by the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
