The Kitten’s Garden of Verses

The Kitten’s Garden of Verses is a 1911 book of comic verse by Oliver Herford (1860-1935), the English-born American humorist, illustrator, and wit who was called the American Oscar Wilde for his drawing-room epigrams. The book parodies Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses by rewriting its famous poems from a kitten’s point of view, with Herford’s own delicate pen-and-ink illustrations of cats throughout. Herford produced a long shelf of small illustrated gift books in this manner, including The Rubáiyát of a Persian Kitten, pairing light verse with his instantly recognisable drawings. The book remains one of the most charming of all cat books for readers who know the Stevenson originals. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.