The late Mrs. Dorothy Parker Book

With the help of illustrations from Peter Kuper, Howard's “The Beast from the Abyss” is re-worked almost into a children's book. Now that's weird!

Howard starts right in, calling cats selfish and lazy and vain. He dismisses pure bred cats as not even having the sense to climb or even land on their feet. He praises alley cats for toughness. Then he goes on at length about mousers or “barn cats” of his own experience. We learn of Fessler, a great general in the continuous war on rats. We learn of Blackface who vanished to escape a plague and returned only sporadically, birthing scores of feral cats in between.

Basically, Robert E. Howard has little use for cats, if they fight and take on rodents they're fine, but they will probably start to eat you if they find you dead.

For once, I'm on board with the illustrations. Kuper's woodcut styles stuff is highly comic and it doesn't shoot for cute, although being about cats it sort of is anyway.

I'm a Howard fan and will probably read anything I can get ahold of from him. This was a nice little oddity and it in no way lacks his voice and spirit.