On Cats

By Doris Lessing

A collection of charming and celebrated writings about cats, from Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Doris Lessing’s love affair with cats began at a young age, when she became intrigued with the semi-feral creatures on the African farm where she grew up. Her fascination remained undiminished by the handsome domesticated creatures who shared her flats and her life in London and grew into real love with El Magnifico, the awkwardly lovable cat who in his later years suffered the great indignity of becoming a three-legged beast.

Consisting of Lessing’s celebrated collection of stories, ‘Particularly Cats and Rufus’, and the poignant though unsentimental memoir, ‘The Old Age of El Magnifico’, this book is a brilliant evocation of the feline world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Mar 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9780007383177

Doris Lessing

Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, Doris Lessing was one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of our time, the recipient of a host of international awards. She wrote more than thirty books—among them the novels Martha Quest, The Golden Notebook, and The Fifth Child. She died in 2013.

Reviews for On Cats

[memasmb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Though a dog lover, I absolutely loved this book. The insight that Doris has about her cats is so easily transcribed to the pages of this book. You can feel the love that exists between her and her cats.Her descriptions at times brought tears to my eyes. I will never look at a cat again without stopping to think that here lies a very special being.Read this book, you will love her stories.

[welshy72 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book by Doris Lessing and her life with cats, the book is based on her love of the feline creatures that habitats her life, included in the book are two chapters on two cats she was particularly fond off, Rufus and El Magnifico.This book is a lovely read, the style of writing is exquisite and she describes all manner of the cat’s personality and their traits. I wouldn’t say she has a particular love of cats but she sees certain qualities in them that draws them too her affectionately, referring to some cats at the beginning of the book as grey cat or second cat and not by name. Lessing chronicles all the feline’s behaviour from their fussy habits, who is the top cat to the way they move, the descriptions are exceptional.I didn’t think I would enjoy this being a dog lover but it was a fab book, I’ll look at cats differently from now on. If your a lover of cats then I recommend this book to you.

[ilovemycat1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Charming, little book that most accurately describes cats and their ways. Fast read, highly enjoyable for those who have and/or love cats. Her cats are indoor/outdoor cats and had multiple litters of kittens before being fixed. Non-fiction.

[evaberry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Highly astute observations about the inner lives of cats.

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lovely memoir about the cats in Lessing's life and why they matter.

[smiler69 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

By the time I finished this little novel, which I took many weeks to slowly peruse while I had other things going on, I was quite sorry I had come to the last page, because the story I had just read was both sublime and heartbreaking, an ode to a cat who had clearly taken a very special place in Dorris Lessing's heart and who is no doubt still missed. When I got this book, I wondered how it could be that a book on cats written by a Nobel Prize laureate wasn't more popular, but then the first few pages gave me the answer. Lessing's recollections about cats begin with those that lived in and out of their family farmhouse in Africa when she was a child. As they multiplied exponentially, with many of them going wild and then attacking the fowls, Lessing's mother was assigned to kill a great number of them off, which makes for some gruesome and sad anecdotes which are hard to take for an animal lover. By chapter 3, things become much more tolerable, even quite enchanting, with the hard living of Africa now forgotten, as we're introduced to a beautiful new arrival in the author's London flat: "The kitten was six weeks old. It was enchanting, a delicate fairy-tale cat, whose Siamese genes showed in the shape of her face, ears, tail, and the subtle lines of its body. Her back was tabby: from above or the back, she was a pretty tabby kitten, in grey and cream, But her front and stomach were a smoky-gold, Siamese cream, with half-bars of black at the neck. Her face was pencilled with black—fine dark rings around the eyes, fine dark streaks on her cheeks, a tiny cream-coloured nose with a pink tip, outlined in black. From the front, sitting with her slender paws straight, she was an exotically beautiful beast. She sat, a tiny thing, in the middle of a yellow carpet, surrounded by five worshippers, not at all afraid of us. Then she stalked around the floor of the house, inspecting every inch of it, climbed up on to my bed, crept under the fold of a sheet, and was at home."Only a true cat lover could have written those lines, and we discover all the wonders of grey cat (mentioned above), and her standoff with black cat, most of which is quite amusing and charming, if you ignore the bits about kittens having to be gotten rid of, since apparently in these bygone days, people didn't believe in getting their cats spayed. But when we reach the last story "The Old Age of El Magnifico", we're willing to forgive Lessing for taking us through the painful bits—this is a true love letter to a cat dearly beloved, which pulls at the heartstrings, and might make the reader shed a tear or two, as I did.