Friday
12Sep2008
Poetry Friday: James Marshall's Owl and Pussycat
Friday, September 12, 2008 at 11:11PM 
My favorite picture book edition of Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat is, not suprisingly, James Marshall's. I love that the "beautiful pea-green boat" is a cruise ship, the S.S. Dorabella. The watercolor sketches for this book were Marshall's last work.
Lear himself did not finish "The Children of the Owl and the Pussycat," portions of which were published posthumously. Here are the opening lines:
Our mother was the Pussycat,
our father was the Owl,
And so we're partly little beasts
and partly little fowl.
The brothers of our family
have feathers and they hoot,
While all the sisters dress in fur
and have long tails to boot.
We all believe that little mice,
For food are singularly nice.
Reader Comments (4)
How is it I never knew of this unfinished sequel? Thanks for sharing that, I now have to dig my Lear and reread it all!
I didn't either. It's in Angus Davidson's Edward Lear (1938); I found it on the Lear pages at www.nonsenselit.org. I'm not sure I like it. Spoiler alert: The pussycat dies!
I love those opening lines. But... the pussycat dies? Why? Did she lay eggs?!
Hee hee. No, although one wonders how she managed the owlcat children. Ultimately, though, she fell out of a tree. Here are the next few lines:
Our mother died long years ago. She was a lovely cat
Her tail was 5 feet long, and grey with stripes, but what of that?
In Sila forest on the East of fair Calabria's shore
She tumbled from a lofty tree -- none ever saw her more.
Our owly father long was ill from sorrow and surprise,
But with the feathers of his tail he wiped his weeping eyes.