May 24, 1898

Kathleen Hale (May 24, 1898 to January 26, 2000) is remembered as a children's writer. She wrote many books featuring an orange cat named Orlando. She also painted and sculpted, often animals. Here is her picture as it appears in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Kathleen Hale (1898–2000), by Kurt Hutton, 1949

The last paragraphs of her ODNB article capture nicely a lovely life, if not the wit in her writing:

In 1961, after McClean's retirement, he and Hale moved to Todd House, a cottage in Oxfordshire. Their sons had grown up and left home, but there were still plenty of cats. McClean died in 1967, followed shortly afterwards by the second Orlando. Hale wrote her last book when she was in her nineties. A Slender Reputation (1994) is a frank and evocative memoir, its characteristically modest title taken from Cedric Morris's remark: ‘Do you mean to tell me, Kathleen, that you have hung your slender reputation on the broad shoulders of a eunuch cat?’ ....

Hale ...was made an OBE in 1976, and wore her usual assortment of eclectic and colourful clothes, mostly bought from second-hand shops, when presented with the award by the queen at Buckingham Palace.....

May 24, 1898

I was chastened to read a review of Kathleen Hale's series of books about Orlando the Marmalade Cat. There are 18 books in which Orlando stars, and I was delighted to read about the cat, in Orlando's Invisible Pajamas (1947). Kathleen Hale, (May 24, 1898, to January 26, 2000) British artist and children's author, in this story centers the plot around a cat who drops a dead mouse into the skillet of the night watchman while he is frying sausages. And then I finished the biography of Kathleen Hale in Twentieth Century Children's Writers, (1989). Just hearing about Orlando's adventures made me smile and the biographer summarized Hale's audience as "the intelligent six-year-old," and went on, (to, I assumed, some loved by all ages cliche) " [her work is ] capable of being appreciated on some level at almost any age [...] from four to eight." Almost made me choke on my chocolate.