Last Updated on March 24, 2026 by admin
Cats have been cherished companions to some of the most celebrated figures in history. Mark Twain kept dozens of them and wrote about them with open affection. Freddie Mercury dedicated songs to his. Abraham Lincoln brought them to the White House. The pattern holds across cultures, centuries, and disciplines — and it tells us something real about why cats and humans have been partners for thousands of years.
Ancient Love for Cats
Cats in Ancient Egypt
Cats first became closely associated with humans in Egypt around 2000 BCE, likely domesticated from the African wildcat to control rodents threatening grain stores. The arrangement worked so well that cats became deeply embedded in Egyptian culture — not just as working animals but as beloved household companions depicted in art alongside their owners.
The attachment ran deep enough that harming a cat, even accidentally, could carry serious legal consequences. When a household cat died, family members would sometimes shave their eyebrows as a sign of mourning.
Feline Worship and the Goddess Bastet
Cats also ascended to the divine. Bastet, depicted as a woman with a cat’s head (or sometimes as a lioness), was a major goddess associated with home, fertility, and protection. Her primary cult center at Bubastis was one of Egypt’s most important religious sites, drawing enormous annual festivals. Thousands of bronze cat figurines discovered at these sites were votive offerings — evidence of how thoroughly the cat had been woven into Egyptian spiritual life.
Literary Figures Who Loved Cats
Mark Twain
Mark Twain’s affection for cats was legendary even in his lifetime. He kept them constantly — at his Connecticut home, at his various residences, even renting cats when traveling. He gave them elaborate names (Apollinaris, Zoroaster, Blatherskite) and defended them with characteristic sharpness: “If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.” Cats appear throughout his essays and letters as objects of genuine admiration.
Charles Baudelaire
The French poet Charles Baudelaire, best known for Les Fleurs du Mal, wrote repeatedly about cats as symbols of mystery, beauty, and the poetic temperament. In his poem “Cats,” he described them as kindred spirits to scholars and lovers — aloof, powerful, and deeply interior. For Baudelaire, the cat embodied something essential about the artistic life.
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway developed a particular fondness for polydactyl cats — cats born with extra toes — at his Key West home. A ship captain gave him his first polydactyl cat, named Snow White, and he kept many more throughout his life. His Key West home is now a museum, still home to roughly 50 polydactyl cats descended from that original line.
Political Leaders and Their Cats
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln had a well-documented love of animals, and cats were among his favorites. His son Tad had a cat named Tabby that lived in the White House during Lincoln’s presidency. Lincoln’s tenderness toward animals was noted by those around him — he once reportedly insisted on rescuing stray kittens found in a military camp during the Civil War, taking time to ensure they were cared for even during the war’s demands.
Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great of Russia was known for keeping cats at court, and Russian Blue cats have long been associated with Russian imperial households, though the specific link to Catherine is more traditional than rigorously documented. What is clear is that the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg — originally Catherine’s palace — has maintained working cats for centuries, a tradition that continues today with dozens of cats officially employed to protect the museum’s collections from rodents.
Icons of Music and Their Feline Companions
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury’s devotion to his cats was extraordinary even by cat-lover standards. Over his lifetime he had more than ten cats, and he maintained such close bonds with them that he would call home from tour specifically to speak with them. His favorite was a tortoiseshell named Delilah, who inspired the Queen song of the same name. When Mercury died in 1991, he left much of his estate to his friend Mary Austin, with specific provisions for the care of his cats.
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, kept more than 60 cats over her lifetime. She believed strongly in their therapeutic value — that their calm, warm presence helped patients recover and provided emotional comfort during illness. Nightingale herself relied on them during the long periods of illness that marked the second half of her life. Her writings describe the cats with real affection, and she advocated for animals in hospitals at a time when few were making that argument.
Artists Inspired by Cats
Paul Klee
Swiss painter Paul Klee returned to cats throughout his career. His 1928 painting Cat and Bird — showing a cat’s face with a tiny bird reflected in its forehead — is one of his most recognizable works, combining his characteristic geometric abstraction with something emotionally direct. Klee’s cats appear playful and strange, reflecting his broader interest in combining childlike observation with serious artistic invention. He kept cats himself and clearly found them endlessly interesting to look at.
Legendary Cats and Their Famous Companions
Nikola Tesla and Macak
Nikola Tesla credited a childhood cat with sparking his lifelong fascination with electricity. His cat Macak generated static electricity when stroked in dry winter air, producing small sparks — a phenomenon that Tesla described in his autobiography as the moment he first wondered what electricity really was. The observation stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Isaac Newton and the Cat Door
Isaac Newton is frequently credited with inventing the cat door, supposedly to let his cat Spithead come and go without interrupting his work. The story is charming and widely repeated, though its historical documentation is thin — it appears in sources well after Newton’s death. Whether or not the invention is his, Newton did keep cats, and the story’s persistence says something about how people like to imagine geniuses: absorbed in their work, but still soft on their cats.
Edgar Allan Poe and Catterina
Edgar Allan Poe had a devoted cat named Catterina who stayed close to him throughout his most productive writing years. Poe’s short story “The Black Cat” — one of his most disturbing works — reflects an awareness of the deep psychological bond between humans and cats, and how the violation of that bond represents a kind of moral collapse. Catterina reportedly stayed beside Poe’s ailing wife Virginia during her illness, providing warmth through the cold.
Unsinkable Sam
One of history’s most remarkable cats served in the Royal Navy during World War II. Originally named Oscar, he was found floating on a board after the German battleship Bismarck was sunk in 1941. Rescued by HMS Cossack, he survived that ship’s torpedoing as well. He was then transferred to HMS Ark Royal, which was itself torpedoed and sunk — and Sam was found again, reportedly unharmed and described by sailors as “angry but unharmed.” He eventually retired ashore and lived out his days in peace. A portrait of him, labeled “Unsinkable Sam,” now hangs in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
Why Cats and Remarkable People Get Along
Looking across this list, certain patterns emerge. Writers appreciate cats for their independence and their capacity to simply exist in a room without demanding attention. Scientists like Tesla and Newton seem to have been alert to cats as natural phenomena — creatures worth observing. Political leaders and musicians valued the uncomplicated companionship cats offer: no agenda, no judgment, just presence.
Florence Nightingale’s therapeutic insight seems especially prescient now, when animal-assisted therapy is an established field. The purr of a cat really does have measurable calming effects, and the warmth of a cat in a cold room is not a trivial thing. These remarkable people weren’t eccentric for loving cats. They were just paying attention.