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
The King of the Cats 1929 short story "The King of the Cats" based around this folk story was selected by The Library of America for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of "American Fantastic Tales", edited by Peter Straub. Frances Jenkins Olcott's 1942 anthology "Good Stories For Great Holidays" included a version of Charlotte S. Burne's "The King of the Cats" adapted by Ernest Rhys. Barbara Sleigh's 1955 children's book "" is inspired in part by this tale, as are its two sequels, "The Kingdom of Carbonel" and "Carbonel and Callidor", which make up the "Carbonel" series. Peter Straub's 1980 novel, "Shadowland" also references the