6" x 8" (paper) 4" x 4" (image)
Available for purchase here.
For the cover of my Cats A-Z book I definitely didn't want to have a cute cat. So thinking it through for a while, I came up with this image. The model for the cat peering up from behind the table is my own pet cat Horatio (also known by his nickname "Oshie.") He is named after Hamlet's foil, because Oshie was acquired to be a friend and amusing contrast to my older cat Aubrey. Perhaps the best-known scene in the play Hamlet is when Hamlet picks up the skull of Yorick, and says to Horatio:
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hathborne me on his back a thousand times; and now, howabhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims atit. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I knownot how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment,that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, lether paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.