Celebrating H.P. Lovecraft’s interest in our fascinating felines.

The Office Cat at the Brown Daily Herald, the student newspaper of Brown University, Providence. Daily since 1891.

Such newspaper and office cats not only protected the back-files and picture-libraries from destructive mice, but also had other uses… “The office of the famous New York Sun (a great newspaper, now defunct) always had a complement of working cats … ‘the office cat’ made readers laugh when it was blamed for mistakes in the paper.” Also, if the editors did not wish to report a tendentious item or vapid bit of puffery, then “the office cat ate it”.

Thus when Lovecraft ‘borrowed’ cats for his study, he was adding an element that would be common to the editorial experience of the time.