On Cats: An Anthology by Margaret Atwood

This beautiful gift book contains a selection of essays, stories, and poems on cats by writers from across the centuries, revealing that cats have been worshipped, adored, and mistrusted in equal measure.

In these pages, writers reflect on the curious feline qualities that inspire such devotion in their owners, even when it seems one-sided.

Cats’ affections are hard-won and often fickle. Sigmund Freud considered his cat an embodiment of true egoism. Hilaire Belloc found peace in his feline companion’s complacency, and Ernest Hemingway—a famous cat-lover—wrote of drinking with his eleven cats and the pleasant distraction they gave him.

These writers, and many others, paint a joyful portrait of cats and their mysterious ways. As Hemingway wrote, “one cat leads to another.”

On Cats is a companion volume to the Notting Hill Editions anthology On Dogs, which was published in 2019 and features an introduction by Tracey Ullman.