The Cat That Walked by Himself · And Other Stories

"HEAR and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild—as wild as wild could be—and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him."

So begins the story of The Cat That Walked by Himself , one of many stories Kipling created to entertain his own children and those of his friends, inventing ingenious explanations for such conundrums as "How the Camel Got His Hump." In 1902, he wrote down these gloriously fanciful tales for publication as the Just So Stories. This beautiful gift edition presents the best-loved story "The Cat that Walked by Himself" alongside "How the Camel Got His Hump," "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin," and "The Elephant's Child," and reproduces the author's delightfully evocative original illustrations.