The Cat Who Had 14 Tales

The Cat Who Had 14 Tales is Lilian Jackson Braun’s 1988 collection of fourteen short stories featuring cats and the various characters who inhabit the wider Cat Who universe. The collection is something of a departure from the standard novel format that the series uses, with the short story format giving Braun room to develop self contained pieces that explore corners of the cat and human relationship that the longer novels did not always have room for.

The fourteen stories range across various settings, time periods, and styles. Some are mystery oriented in the cozy tradition that the wider Cat Who novels operate in. Some are more reflective character studies that explore the relationships between particular humans and their cats. Some are more atmospheric or even slightly supernatural pieces that take advantage of the cat’s traditional literary association with the mysterious and the otherworldly. Braun draws on her long experience writing about cats and on her affection for the various breeds and personalities of cats that the wider Cat Who series has been built around.

The collection works particularly well as a sampler of Braun’s range as a writer beyond the established Cat Who novel formula. Readers who have only encountered the Pickax based mysteries of the main series get to see Braun working in different modes and at different lengths, with the cumulative effect of the fourteen stories providing a richer portrait of her writing than any single Cat Who novel could deliver on its own.

For longtime Cat Who series fans, this collection is essential reading. For new readers curious about Braun’s work, the short story format provides a low commitment introduction to her voice. For cat lovers more generally, the collection delivers the kind of warm cat focused fiction that the wider tradition of cat literature has been producing across many decades.