As Carl Van Vechten notes in his preface to this collection, "In the essay and especially in poetry the cat has become a favourite subject, but in fiction it must be admitted that he lags considerably behind the dog." Van Vechten sought to mitigate this disparity by creating this collection of charming (and sometimes frightening) feline tales.
The collection includes stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Guy Wetmore Carryl, Algernon Blackwood, Honore de Balzac, Booth Tarkington, G. H. Powell, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas A. Janvier, W. H. Hudson, William Livingston Alden, Peggy Bacon, and Charles Dudley Warner."