August 2, 1997

William S. Burroughs, (February 5, 1914 to August 2, 1997) the son of a wealthy St. Louis family (think IBM), lived in many exotic locales around the world. Most of his final decades  he spent in a modest home in Lawrence Kansas.

In an article written by Yony Leyser and entitled "The Cat Offers Itself : How Burroughs’s beloved Marigay was saved from viral feline leukemia using ancient Ojibwa herbs" we find out that: 

.....Besides his devotion to his four-legged friends, Burroughs also maintained a serious love of all things related to science, the occult, magic, and the subversion of tradition and control systems. He received a formal education at Harvard University and briefly studied at medical school in Vienna before dropping out to begin his life as a writer.

What is less well known is that:

Burroughs also subscribed to Cat Fancy for many years, saving hundreds of issues for his personal library. In May 2010, his manager, James Grauerholz, pitched a story to the pussy-friendly publication about the writer’s unwavering love for his kitties. The editors of the magazine must have been startled by the pitch, which began:

While William S. Burroughs is increasingly regarded as one of the most important writers of the 20th century, his artistic genius is often overshadowed by tales of his outlaw lifestyle: founder of the Beat movement; his drug addictions and homosexuality; the accidental shooting of his wife in a drunken William Tell routine; and, later in life, his unofficial status as the godfather of the punk rock movement. Of all the wild stories in Burroughs’s life, the best (and most secret), came last: That he did indeed find love and redemption before he died—through his cats.

Cat Fancy declined to have a story about a major American writer's love for cats in their pages. They turned down the chance to learn more about the man who wrote:

'Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.