[Vwoolf] Undigested Cats

Thu Feb 11 13:52:10 EST 2021

Let me try again using the URL

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/ids:17951208__;!!KGKeukY!lHjRb2wD-Zty_BxxPN5hk6sT8T0i9hC1ETOKVNbzLQQ_S4IxvquOQCE1LsesfVpoNaI$ 

Danell

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2021 10:23 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: [Vwoolf] Undigested Cats

(1) Marvellous photos – I can date the one with the advert for Jessie Matthews in “First a Girl” (you probably know its remake better: “Victor, Victoria”) to 1935.

(2) I’m not one to gossip, but . . . they do say that poor housewives would buy from the cat’s meat man . . . even if they didn’t own a cat.

(3) Topaz seems cheerful enough, stretching in the sun (little does he know . . .).  Perhaps he’s well treated by Rebecca.  Cf. Mrs Sands in BA: “Had there been a cat [in the barn] she would have seen it--any cat, a starved cat with a patch of mange on its rump opened the flood gates of her childless heart.”

(4) Sappho is post-VW.

(5) “The Niece of an Earl”:
“Unfortunately, however, life is so framed that literary success invariably means a rise, never a fall, and seldom, what is far more desirable, a spread in the social scale. The rising novelist is never pestered to come to gin and winkles with the plumber and his wife. His books never bring him into touch with the cat's-meat man, or start a correspondence with the old lady who sells matches and bootlaces by the gate of the British Museum.”

Stuart
(Day 331)

From: Andrea Zemgulys via Vwoolf 
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2021 4:20 PM
To: Danell Jones 
Cc: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Undigested Cats

That must have been a tricky photograph back in the day! 

On an adjacent topic, photos of “cat’s meat men” always fascinate me.  (Purveyors of food FOR cats and dogs, but who can really say…). I’ve seen other photos with a London seller being trailed by scores of hungry, thin street cats at a time.  I don’t believe this was a London sight that VW wrote about, but wouldn’t rule it out (on this list!). And it might give some context for the nuisance of poor Topaz.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://designyoutrust.com/2019/07/amazing-vintage-photographs-of-cats-meat-sellers-in-london-in-the-early-20th-century/__;!!KGKeukY!lHjRb2wD-Zty_BxxPN5hk6sT8T0i9hC1ETOKVNbzLQQ_S4IxvquOQCE1LsesVtfUgiQ$ 

Andrea Z.

On Feb 11, 2021, at 11:03 AM, Danell Jones via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

<B217411AF1F745BC8AC833E28400449A.jpg>

This, too, is one from the digitized Houghton Library collection. One of my favorites. I love small, feisty gray cats! 

Danell

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Diane Gillespie via Vwoolf
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 11:21 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Undigested Cats

Leonard is holding a similar cat in a photo facing page 192 in the last volume of his autobiography, The Journey Not the Arrival Matters.  
Thanks to all for the cat references in these recent exchanges.
Greetings on a very cold day from another amused and appreciative cat owner,

Diane Gillespie

On 2/10/2021 6:27 AM, Neverow, Vara S. via Vwoolf wrote:
It's worthwhile to admire a Woolf cat....This is Sappho, a Siamese. The photo is from one of the Monks House albums held at Harvard's Houghton Library and now digitalized (and the Library posted it on Twitter...).

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://twitter.com/houghtonlib/status/1159480579940855810__;!!KGKeukY!lHjRb2wD-Zty_BxxPN5hk6sT8T0i9hC1ETOKVNbzLQQ_S4IxvquOQCE1LsesjPJAD8g$  

Vara

Vara Neverow
Department of English
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515
203-392-6717
neverowv1 at southernct.edu

<D8BD0C01D4CD446193CD630437F2D87E.png>
From: Vwoolf mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu on behalf of Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 9:10 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: [Vwoolf] Undigested Cats

“did the Woolfs keep cats as pets or indoor-outdoor presences?  I don't remember any in the diaries.”

See Diary 14 & 15/10/17 & 26/11/17; also 23/4/18 – all referring to the Manx cat

However, this paucity in the Diary only goes to show that one should pay more attention to the letters!

See nos. 229, 243, 2343, 2628, 3616, 3677 (recommended), 3689, 3695.

Finally, from an uncollected letter:

[On verso, small mark circled:] This is the cats paw

Stuart
(Day 330)

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