T S Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot a.k.a. T S Eliot (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) is the author of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), a book of poetry that became the basis for the musical Cats.

Eliot was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, and literary and social critic. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25 and would settle, work and marry there. He became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39, subsequently renouncing his American passport.

Considered one of the twentieth century's major poets, Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), which was seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), "The Hollow Men" (1925), "Ash Wednesday" (1930), and Four Quartets (1943). He was also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry".

Eliot loved cats and owned many during his life. He was fond of giving them peculiar names such as Jellylorum, Pettipaws, Wiscus, and George Pushdragon.

Poems in Cats the Musical
Eliot's poetry serves as the basis or inspiration for all the songs in the musical. Many of the lyrics are lifted from his poems with little alteration.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is a collection of poems published in 1939. Most of the songs in the musical can be found in their entirety in this book, namely:
 * "The Naming of Cats"
 * "The Old Gumbie Cat"
 * "Growltiger's Last Stand"
 * "The Rum Tum Tugger"
 * "The Song of the Jellicles"
 * "Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer"
 * "Old Deuteronomy"
 * "(Of) The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles (Together with Some Account of the Participation of the Pugs and the Poms and the Intervention of the Great Rumpus Cat)"
 * "Mr. Mistoffelees"
 * "Macavity: The Mystery Cat"
 * "Gus: The Theatre Cat"
 * "Bustopher Jones: The Cat about Town"
 * "Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat"
 * "The Ad-dressing of Cats"

Unpublished poems
Eliot's widow, Valerie, shared some of Eliot's unpublished drafts and writings with the original creative team for Cats. The following were incorporated into the musical:
 * "Grizabella, the Glamour Cat", which was not included in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats because it was considered too sad for children
 * "Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats", which "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" is modelled after and includes lines from
 * "The Marching Song of the Pollicle Dogs", a few lines of which were incorporated into the sequence for "The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles"
 * Text from a letter Eliot had written to his publisher in 1936 was expanded into "The Journey to the Heaviside Layer"

Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)
A collection of poems published in 1917, from which two poems served as the inspiration for "Memory":
 * "Rhapsody on a Windy Night", a few lines of which were also incorporated into "Grizabella the Glamour Cat"
 * "Preludes"

Five-Finger Exercises (1933)
A short collection of poems published in 1933. Two of the poems are used in the musical:
 * "Lines to a Persian Cat", from which the title of Act 2 originally came from ("Why will the summer day delay? / When will Time flow away?")
 * "Lines to a Yorkshire Terrier", a few lines of which were incorporated into the sequence for "The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles"

Four Quartets (1943)
One of Eliot's most well-known works, published in 1943. One of the poems from this collection is used in Cats:
 * "The Dry Salvages", the basis for "The Moments of Happiness"

Apropos of Practical Cats
A note from the original production programme by Valerie Eliot, widow of T S Eliot In an early poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', T S Eliot likened the yellow fog of St Louis to a cat -


 * "That rubs its back upon the window-pane,
 * The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
 * Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
 * Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
 * Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
 * Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
 * And seeing that it was a soft October night,
 * Curled once about the house, and fell asleep…"

There are other references to cats in his work, but it was to his Godchildren, particularly Tom Faber and Alison Tandy in the ‘Thirties, that he first revealed himself as Old Possum.

Writing to Tom in January 1931 he described and drew his Lilliecat called Jellyorum whose "one idea is to be USEFUL ...and yet is so little and small that it can sit on my ear! ...I would tell you about our Cus Cus…except that I can't Draw Dogs so well as Cats, Yet; but I mean to...". When tom was four TSE suggested that all Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats should be


 * INVITED to come
 * With a Flute & a Fife & a Fiddle & Drum
 * With a Fiddle, a Fife & a Drum & a Tabor
 * To the Birthday Party of THOMAS ERLE FABER!”

Then there was "a very Grand Cat…a Persian Prince and it is Blue because it has Blue Blood, and its name was MIRLA MURAD ALI BEG but I said that was too Big a Name for such a Small Flat, so its name is WISKUSCAT. But it is sometimes called THE MUSICAL BOX because it makes a noise like singing and sometimes COCKALORUM because it Looks like one. (Have you ever seen a Cockalorum? Neither have I)." In April 1932 Tom learnt that "the Porpentine cat has been in bed with Ear Ache so the Pollicle Dog stopped At Home to Amuse it by making Cat's Cradles". Both children were sent 'The Naming of Cats' in January 1936.

TSE was always inventing suitable cat names, as he was often asked for them by friends and strangers. I remember 'Noilly Prat' (an elegant cat); 'Carbuckety' (a knock-about cat); 'Tantomile' (a witch's cat); he also liked 'Pouncival' with its Morte d'Arthur flavour, and 'Sillabub', a mixture of silly and Beelzebub. Alison received "the late poem I have written: 'The Rum Tum Tugger'" in October 1936. A year later TSE wrote "Some time ago I mentioned in a letter that I was meaning to write a poem about TWO cats, named Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer – and here it is. You may not like it because those two Cats have turned out to be even worse that I expected." On Ash Wednesday 1938 he told her "I am trying to do a poem about a Railway Train Cat and if I can do it I will send it to you in due course." 'Skimbleshanks' followed.

Although Faber & Faber announced 'Mr Eliot's book of Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats As Recited to Him by the Man in White Spats' in their 1936 Spring catalogue, TSE had run into difficulties over his general approach. "The idea of the volume was to have different poems on appropriate subjects…recited by the Man in White Spats …At the end they all go up in a balloon,


 * "Up up up past the Russell Hotel,
 * Up up up to the Heaviside Layer."

Three more years, as his publisher put it, brought "a growing perception that it would be impolite to wrap cats up with dogs” and the realisation that the book would be exclusively feline. Ralph Hodgson, the poet who bred bull-terriers, had hope to illustrate it but at the crucial period he was house-hunting in America. He felt that “the fun of doing it – or attempting it – is the thing, and that is only possible with my feet up on the mantlepiece, as the saying is."

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats was published on 5 October 1939 in an edition of 3005 copies at 3/6d (17½p) with TSE's drawings on the front cover and the dustwrapper. He was nervous about its reception. His verse play The Family Reunion has appeared in March and The Idea of a Christian Society was due in three weeks. "It is intended for a NEW public" he informed Geoffrey Faber, "but I am afraid cannot dispense with the old one." He need not have worried. "Cats are giving general satisfaction" the Sales Manager reported shortly afterwards. Today they have become a minor classic and are to be found in Danish, German, Italian, Japanese, Swedish, Hungarian and Polish.

The Marching Song of the Pollicle Dogs' and 'Billy M'Caw: The Remarkable Parrot' appeared in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross in 1939; 'Grizabella: the Glamour Cat' is an unpublished fragment of which only the last eight lines were written as TSE thought her history too sad for children.

Valerie Eliot

PS Whenever he was unwell or could not sleep, TSE would recite the verses under his breath.