🐾Happy birthday, belated on 12 May to Edward Lear — poet, illustrator, musician, nonsense genius… and devoted servant to one gloriously unimpressed cat. 🐾

Long before social media existed, Lear was documenting the daily adventures of Foss, his famously “unattractive tabby” in sketches, letters, poems, and portraits. Honestly, Foss would have owned the internet.

Beloved for The Owl and the Pussycat, Lear created a world where absurdity, tenderness, and moonlit melancholy drift together like a boat at sea. Though the poem predates Foss, we prefer to imagine poet and cat forever wandering some dark strand together, hand in paw, beneath the light of the moon.

A short tribute from Clowder Press to one of literature’s great cat people. For more about cats with literary connections, stroll over to Clowder Press 

#EdwardLear #FossTheCat #TheOwlAndThePussycat #LiteraryCats #Poetry #NonsenseVerse #VictorianLiterature #CatLovers #YouTubeShorts #ClowderPress

Here  is the full poem., written in 1867. For full feline effect, we recommend you recite it with a friend, and appropriate actions.

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

     In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

   Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

   And sang to a small guitar,

"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

    What a beautiful Pussy you are,

         You are,

         You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!

   How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

   But what shall we do for a ring?"

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

   To the land where the Bong-Tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

   With a ring at the end of his nose,

             His nose,

             His nose,

   With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

   Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."

So they took it away, and were married next day

   By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

   Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

   They danced by the light of the moon,

             The moon,

             The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.