Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An engaging collection of humorous poems. These verses, originally composed to amuse Eliot' s intimate friends, have proven irresistible to cat lovers, lovers of nonsense, and admirers of Eliot throughout the English-speaking world. " Enough ferocious fancy and parody to knock the spots off most cat books and most...verses" (Time). Drawings by Nicolas Bentley.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This is an absolutely marvelous rendition of Eliot's poetic classic, written for his godchildren and friends in the 1930s, which inspired the Broadway musical Cats. The tales of Mr. Mistoffelees the trickmaster, old Deuteronomy, a laid-back cat, Rum Tum Tugger, a contrary cat, and Macavity, the famous master criminal, are dramatized by Richard Briers, Alan Cumming, Nigel Davenport, Andrew Sachs, and Juliet Stevenson. Unfortunately, some material is repeated on the cassette's second side. Moreover, it comes with another tape that consists of excerpts of forthcoming Penguin audiobooks. This edition seems targeted more toward consumers than libraries.‘James Dudley, Copiague, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

This lively and accessible edition of Eliot's classic homage to felines rounds up the familiar gang, with characters like the sprightly Jellicle Cats, who dance in chorus lines on moonlit rooftops, and the vicious Great Rumpuscat, whose fearsome jaws and eyes like "fireballs fearfully blazing" send rival dog gangs scattering. The distinctive personalities of each cat-brought to life by Scheffler's expressive cartoonlike paintings-and Eliot's lyrical, tongue-and-cheek wordplay, will appeal to a new generation of cat aficionados. Ages 6-9. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 3 Up-Scheffler brings his considerable illustrative talents to this new edition of Eliot's much-loved collection of cat whimsy, first published in 1939. Scheffler's cartoon felines, with their expressive eyes, are a deliciously animated cast. From sleepy Old Deuteronomy and busy old Gumbie Cat to naughty Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer, they're contrary and complicated. Whether contemplating their secret name, their next crime (like Macavity), or their next meal (like Bustopher Jones), these cats by turns baffle and delight the humans around them. Edward Gorey's version (Harcourt, 1982) captures Eliot's nuanced humor in stylized black-and-white cartoons. Scheffler's illustrations add colorful detail and playfulness, but both editions bring out the timeless wit and wisdom of these poems. Make room for both editions; cat (and even dog) lovers everywhere will welcome Scheffler's marvelous work.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Horn Book Review

Here is Eliot's uncharacteristically playful cycle, first published in 1939, appealingly illustrated for the youngest part of an audience that now encompasses that for the musical Cats. Evidently intrigued by the diversity amongst felines, Eliot implicitly compares their independence, individuality, idiosyncrasies, and misdemeanors to human varieties in fifteen witty, rhythmic, artfully phrased poems. Illustrator Scheffler's cats -- small, lithe, mischievous, proportioned like kittens -- deploy themselves with catlike verve; laudably, Scheffler extends their antics but never upstages the text. Some assume a human stance (Jennyanydots serving cake to mice, for instance). The cats' eyes (white spheres, black-dot pupils) also resemble humans', with a fine range of subtle emotion. Wide pages nicely accommodate the verse plus vignettes of the cats and their bemused humans, supplemented by an occasional full-page scene. The poems themselves are especially good for the listener who revels in rich vocabulary ("At prestidigitation / And at legerdemain / He'll defy examination / And deceive you again") and names that roll off the tongue (Mungojerrie, Rumpelteazer, Macavity, Mr. Mistoffelees, Skimbleshanks). From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

T. S. Eliot is considered by many to be a literary genius and one of the most influential men of letters during the half-century after World War I. He was born on September 26, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri. Eliot attended Harvard University, with time abroad pursuing graduate studies at the Sorbonne, Marburg, and Oxford. The outbreak of World War I prevented his return to the United States, and, persuaded by Ezra Pound to remain in England, he decided to settle there permanently.

He published his influential early criticism, much of it written as occasional pieces for literary periodicals. He developed such doctrines as the "dissociation of sensibility" and the "objective correlative" and elaborated his views on wit and on the relation of tradition to the individual talent. Eliot by this time had left his early, derivative verse far behind and had begun to publish avant-garde poetry (including "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), which exploited fresh rhythms, abrupt juxtapositions, contemporary subject matter, and witty allusion. This period of creativity also resulted in another collection of verse (including "Gerontian") and culminated in The Waste Land, a masterpiece published in 1922 and produced partly during a period of psychological breakdown while married to his wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot.

In 1922, Eliot became a director of the Faber & Faber publishing house, and in 1927 he became a British citizen and joined the Church of England. Thereafter, his career underwent a change. With the publication of Ash Wednesday in 1930, his poetry became more overtly Christian. As editor of the influential literary magazine The Criterion, he turned his hand to social as well as literary criticism, with an increasingly conservative orientation. His religious poetry culminated in Four Quartets, published individually from 1936 onward and collectively in 1943. This work is often considered to be his greatest poetic achievement. Eliot also wrote poetry in a much lighter vein, such as Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), a collection that was used during the early 1980s as the basis for the musical, Cats.

In addition to his contributions in poetry and criticism, Eliot is the pivotal verse dramatist of this century. He followed the lead of William Butler Yeats in attempting to revive metrical language in the theater. But, unlike Yeats, Eliot wanted a dramatic verse that would be self-effacing, capable of expressing the most prosaic passages in a play, and an insistent, undetected presence capable of elevating itself at a moment's notice. His progression from the pageant The Rock (1934) and Murder in the Cathedral (1935), written for the Canterbury Festival, through The Family Reunion (1939) and The Cocktail Party (1949), a West End hit, was thus a matter of neutralizing obvious poetic effects and bringing prose passages into the flow of verse.

Recent critics have seen Eliot as a divided figure, covertly attracted to the very elements (romanticism, personality, heresy) he overtly condemned. His early attacks on romantic poets, for example, often reveal him as a romantic against the grain. The same divisions carry over into his verse, where violence struggles against restraint, emotion against order, and imagination against ironic detachment. This Eliot is more human and more attractive to contemporary taste. During his lifetime, Eliot received many honors and awards, including the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948.

(Bowker Author Biography)