November 7, 1897

Ruth Pitter ( (November 7, 1897 to February 29, 1992) is the author of On Cats ( 1946.) This book is sometimes incorrectly cited as Pitter on Cats.  She was an English poet, and her verse is sometimes dismissed because of its traditional form and focus. This disdain though was not shared by many leading lights of 20th century literature. Her friends included Philip Larkin, (who included her in his Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Poetry, and C.S. Lewis. In 1952 she bought a house in an English village, Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire, where she lived on several acres, with a close friend. In 1955 a committee composed of John Masefield, Walter de la Mare, Gilbert Murray, Vita Sackville-West and Osbert Sitwell, among others, voted unanimously to award the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, to Pitter.  She continued to write and receive awards for almost another four decades.