June 17, 1880

If there were a patron saint, not of cats, but of cat lovers, it might be Carl Van Vechten, (June 17, 1880 to December 21, 1964) of whom we have written before. This stellar figure of the first half of the last century, was not just a novelist,  theatre reviewer, photographer of intellectuals and artists, and documentarian of the Harlem Renaissnce, but Van Vechten wrote one of the first books on the cat in literature, The Tiger in the House, 1920, and an anthology of cat writers.  My copy of The Tiger in the House has an introduction to a later edition (1936) wherein he alludes to writers he overlooked originally (May Sinclair, for instance) and evaluates the books others have published in this genre. Michael Joseph's Cat's Company (1930) for one, and a book for which Van Vechten wrote the forward: Svend Fleuron, Kittens (1922).  This survey of the literature concerning cats, ends with the author marveling at the amount of work and research he had devoted to the original edition of The Tiger in the House. And he could  not have over-emphasized its importance.