Roger Caras has brought together a collection of tales by such master storytellers as Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe. Mark Twain, Saki. Stephen Vincent Benet. Fritz Leiber. PG. Wodehouse, Paul Gallico and Cordwainer Smith. who join in their respect and admiration for the mysterious and beautiful feline. "Domestic cats emerged in Egypt between 1700 and 1600 BC, not at all coincidentally at the same time the Egvptians invented the silo and began to store grain. For virtually their entire history our tabbies and their kin have had an arcane relationship with us. We have worshipped them, feared them, made them demigods and the familiars of devils and witches, They have foretold happiness and despair and been the agent of both. We have painted them, sculpted them, etched them, incorporated them into our architecture. used them as trademarks, eye-catchers. mousers, and most important. as companions. "Now. in our time. as the industrial revolution has just about completed its work Of urbanizing and suburbanizing formerly rural man, the cat, that ultimate companion animal, is coming into its own to a greater degree and at a ...