If you were get word to read in the early twentieth century , you could do a lot bad than practice on Eulalie Osgood Grover ’s 1911 chef-d’oeuvre of an early reader book , Kittens and Cats ; a Book of Tales , which we spotted on thePublic Domain Review . Long before lolcats or Instagram - famousfelines , Grover ’s pedagogy tool imagined what cats would say if they could talk . And boy , do they have thing to say . In one chapter , a cat muses about how hard it is to drink out of china cup . In another , a cat marvel who that cat he saw in the mirror was . The first chapter ’s narrator proclaims “ I am the pansy of all the Kittens . I am the Queen ! the Queen ! ” ( Show me a cat who does n’t suppose that . )
The chapters , usually just a varlet or so long , are all accompanied by exposure of khat and kittens dressed up in silly lid and frilly outfits and label with subtitle concern to the taradiddle , like “ I am claim a bathing tub , ” “ I am Granny Gray , ” and “ I am the queen ! ”
According to the Public Domain Review , the photographs were potential the work of pioneer beast photographerHarry Whittier Frees , who insisted that his cautiously pose portraits were the result of human handling , not taxidermy . Given how sharply his early-20th - one C photographic camera shutter manage to capture piles of kittens , the claim seems suspicious . But please dwell on how awful these little level and portraits are and not the dressing that might be hiding behind these cute kitty ’ glassy eyes . Go beforehand and enjoy a few of the most delicious bed covering below .
Not sure why every elementary school on earth is n’t instruct their educatee to record with this book .
[ h / tPublic Domain Review ]
