October 23, 1872

Theophile Gautier (August 31, 1811 to October 23, 1872) the French writer, tried his hand at most literary modes and succeeded at many. He may have invented the category of cat books.  La Ménagerie Intime (1871) is a tribute to his cat Eponine. Here is a picture from the book of this cat:



In this book he writes: I have often been caricatured in Turkish dress seated upon cushions, and surrounded by cats so familiar that they did not hesitate to climb upon my shoulders and even upon my head.

Perhaps you think, since there was certainly an English translation, by 1920, and therefore, My Private Menagerie is out of copyright,  that you could read it at books.google.com. But for some reason, the only copy they have is dated later, and the text is not available. 

This link will take you to a free copy of Gautier's famous book: My Private Menagerie, even though this copy was also  digitized by Google. Hathitrust.org is often more reliable than Google in this regard. 

As an artist Gautier struggled to take care of his family and cats. Princess Mathilde found him a job as a librarian where he had very little drudgery to actually do, and so could thrive.