Laurel for Libby

'She was born in the year of the second Great Exhibition and she was run over by a tradesman's bicycle in 1934 - a long life for a cat. There were all sorts of mysteries about her...' So begins the tale of 'Libby', preserved in an unpublished manuscript by Vivien Green, the wife of Graham Greene, and based on a dream she had on September 14, 1937. It tells the story of 'The Oldest Cat in Bristol' who was born in the summer of 1862 and lived with the same family all her life through four major wars, the Peace of Berlin and the Treaty of Versailles. Named differently by a succession of cooks and family members over the years, she was also known as Methuselah, Kitty, Don, Tom, Moe and Queenie at one time or another, and a question mark always hung over her sex - 'not having kittens made it more difficult to be certain'. The story of this richly marked tabby with a silvery muzzle and a tendency to dribble was presented by the author to her husband as a tenth anniversary gift.
Reproduced in Vivien Greene's own very legible hand and illustrated with her charming drawings of Libby and the houses she occupied in Clifton, Bristol, this whimsical story is sure to delight readers and cat lovers of all ages.