great artists and writers often find themselves immortalized in their masters’ works. But in the strange case of nineteenth-century British artist and writer Edward Lear, a bit of poetic whimsy seems to have found its way into the real world.
The bearded, bespectacled eccentric gained fame as a painter of animals and landscapes. But he also published several books of children’s nonsense poems that made him internationally famous. Many, including The Owl and the Pussycat , are still read to toddlers today.
Lear illustrated his poems with lighthearted cartoons. One of his favorite subjects was a striped tomcat named Foss, who he acquired in 1872. Lear’s devotion to his pet is quite amazing, considering that Foss was by all accounts a most unattractive subject. He was fat, with a bobbed tail reportedly cut off by a superstitious servant who believed it would stop him from roaming. Yet there’s no end to the pictures Lear drew of himself and his rotund friend on adventures. No photos exist of the famous feline. When Lear tried to take one, the big orange cat jumped out of his master’s arms just before the shutter clicked.
Lear loved Foss so much that, when the artist built a new home, he made it look exactly like his old one, so as not to upset the cat. And when Foss passed away in 1887, he was buried in his master’s garden under a large memorial stone. Lear himself died only two months later.
Today pictures of Foss can still be seen in collections of Lear’s nonsense poems. But there’s something mysterious about them. The real Foss didn’t enter the artist’s life until 1872. Yet years earlier he regularly produced drawings of a similar fat, striped, stub-tailed cat. And for some reason, Lear was convinced that Foss lived a near-impossible thirty-one years—so much so that he had that figure carved on his friend’s tombstone. Perhaps he saw the real Foss as the incarnation of the imaginary cat he’d carried in his mind’s eye for decades. “Edward adored Foss, and it was mutual, but the Foss we know belongs more to the world of nonsense stories than he does to the real world,” says Lear biographer Peter Levi. Maybe he always did.
COBBY
THE CAT WHO STOLE HIS
MASTER’S HEART—LITERALLY
After the death of English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy on January 11, 1928, his pet cat, Cobby, reportedly vanished, never to be seen again. This strange occurrence gave rise to one of the most macabre stories in the history of Western literature.
It began shortly after the great man’s passing, when a contest broke out over where to bury his body. Hardy’s will stated explicitly that he wanted to be laid to rest with minimal ceremony in his hometown of Stinsford. However, the executor of his will thought that the author of such classics as Tess of the d’Urbervilles , The Mayor of Casterbridge , and The Return of the Native should enjoy more august accommodations. Specifically, he wanted Hardy to find repose in the fabled Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey, near such luminaries as Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Dr. Samuel Johnson.
After heated debate with the family, a compromise was reached: Hardy’s body would go to Westminster Abbey and his heart to Stinsford. This would require a bit of postmortem surgery—a job that Hardy’s personal physician reportedly declined to undertake. Another doctor was found,and the organ was removed while the great author lay in state at his home. Tradition says it was wrapped in a tea cloth, placed in a biscuit tin, and set aside for transport.
According to one version of the story, the next day the undertaker charged with carrying the heart to Stinsford discovered the box was empty and Cobby was nowhere to be found—the assumption being, of course, that the cat ran off with his owner’s heart. But there’s an even more horrifying telling of the tale. Some contend that, on the fateful day, authorities found the box empty save for a few scraps of flesh—and
The bearded, bespectacled eccentric gained fame as a painter of animals and landscapes. But he also published several books of children’s nonsense poems that made him internationally famous. Many, including The Owl and the Pussycat , are still read to toddlers today.
Lear illustrated his poems with lighthearted cartoons. One of his favorite subjects was a striped tomcat named Foss, who he acquired in 1872. Lear’s devotion to his pet is quite amazing, considering that Foss was by all accounts a most unattractive subject. He was fat, with a bobbed tail reportedly cut off by a superstitious servant who believed it would stop him from roaming. Yet there’s no end to the pictures Lear drew of himself and his rotund friend on adventures. No photos exist of the famous feline. When Lear tried to take one, the big orange cat jumped out of his master’s arms just before the shutter clicked.
Lear loved Foss so much that, when the artist built a new home, he made it look exactly like his old one, so as not to upset the cat. And when Foss passed away in 1887, he was buried in his master’s garden under a large memorial stone. Lear himself died only two months later.
Today pictures of Foss can still be seen in collections of Lear’s nonsense poems. But there’s something mysterious about them. The real Foss didn’t enter the artist’s life until 1872. Yet years earlier he regularly produced drawings of a similar fat, striped, stub-tailed cat. And for some reason, Lear was convinced that Foss lived a near-impossible thirty-one years—so much so that he had that figure carved on his friend’s tombstone. Perhaps he saw the real Foss as the incarnation of the imaginary cat he’d carried in his mind’s eye for decades. “Edward adored Foss, and it was mutual, but the Foss we know belongs more to the world of nonsense stories than he does to the real world,” says Lear biographer Peter Levi. Maybe he always did.
COBBY
THE CAT WHO STOLE HIS
MASTER’S HEART—LITERALLY
After the death of English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy on January 11, 1928, his pet cat, Cobby, reportedly vanished, never to be seen again. This strange occurrence gave rise to one of the most macabre stories in the history of Western literature.
It began shortly after the great man’s passing, when a contest broke out over where to bury his body. Hardy’s will stated explicitly that he wanted to be laid to rest with minimal ceremony in his hometown of Stinsford. However, the executor of his will thought that the author of such classics as Tess of the d’Urbervilles , The Mayor of Casterbridge , and The Return of the Native should enjoy more august accommodations. Specifically, he wanted Hardy to find repose in the fabled Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey, near such luminaries as Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Dr. Samuel Johnson.
After heated debate with the family, a compromise was reached: Hardy’s body would go to Westminster Abbey and his heart to Stinsford. This would require a bit of postmortem surgery—a job that Hardy’s personal physician reportedly declined to undertake. Another doctor was found,and the organ was removed while the great author lay in state at his home. Tradition says it was wrapped in a tea cloth, placed in a biscuit tin, and set aside for transport.
According to one version of the story, the next day the undertaker charged with carrying the heart to Stinsford discovered the box was empty and Cobby was nowhere to be found—the assumption being, of course, that the cat ran off with his owner’s heart. But there’s an even more horrifying telling of the tale. Some contend that, on the fateful day, authorities found the box empty save for a few scraps of flesh—and
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