July 17, 1859

Ernest Rhys (July 17, 1859 to May 25, 1946) was an English writer and editor. He was one of the founding editors of Everyman's Library, a publishing venture meant to promote classic literature in cheaper bindings. This was a successful program.

Let's remember some titles with which Ernest Rhys is connected.

Rabindranath Tagore: a biographical study (1916), is an early introduction to this writer.
A century of English essays (ed) Ernest Rhys (1916)

Leaves of Grass is a book he worked to get published in England.

Oh he wrote original stuff too---

1. Enid: a lyric play written for music (1908). He wrote or edited lots of stuff.

Including his own memoirs__

Everyman Remembers (1931)

and Wales England Wed (1941).

And he collected fairy tales, like, Fairy-gold: a book of classic English fairy tales (1907)

One story in this book is titled "The King of the Cats"

and here is a shortened version of his version---

Once upon a time there were two brothers who lived in a lonely house in a very lonely part of Scotland. An old woman used to do the cooking, and there was no one else, unless we count her cat and their own dogs, within miles of them.

...[One of the brothers is out hunting when he witnesses a strange scene and later recounts at home what he saw ..."There was a] ...coffin and... torches ... both carried by cats, and upon the coffin were marked a crown and a scepter!"

He got no farther, for the black cat started up, shrieking: —"My stars! old Peter's dead, and I 'm the King o' the Cats!" — Then [their cat] rushed up the chimney, and was seen no more.

I have read this story more than once, and it always gives me a wee shiver. And surely it is true, as Rhys wrote elsewhere--

Words, like flowers, have their colors too.