Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats director of the publishing company Faber and Faber. Morley's daughter, Susanna Smithson, uncovered the poem as part of the BBC Two programme "Arena: T.S. Eliot", broadcast that night as part of the BBC Poetry Season. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939) is a collection of whimsical poems by T. S. Eliot about feline psychology and sociology, published by Faber and Faber. It is the basis for the musical "Cats". Eliot wrote the poems in the 1930s, and included them, under his assumed name "Old Possum", in letters to his godchildren. They were collected
Joel Chandler Harris Uncle Remus-inspired dialect, referring to themselves as "Brer Rabbit" and "Old Possum," respectively. Eventually the dialect and the personae became a sign of their collaboration against the London literary establishment. Eliot titled one of his books "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats". Ralph Bakshi wrote and directed a 1975 American live action/animated crime film titled "Coonskin" based on Harris' Brothers rabbit, fox, and bear who rise to the top of the organized crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists, and the Mafia. In 1946, the Walt Disney Company produced a film based on the Uncle Remus tales