Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.

London: Faber and Faber Limited,, 1939. With Cats, some say, one rule is true: Don't speak till you are spoken to First edition, first impression, one of 3,005 copies printed. Eliot wrote the whimsical poems included in this collection throughout the 1930s, and included them under his assumed name "Old Possum" in letters to his godchildren. The work was adapted by Andrew Lloyd Webber into the musical Cats, which opened in the West End in May 1981 and on Broadway in October 1982. Both productions became the longest-running musicals in each theatre district. Octavo. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in red morocco, spine with raised bands and lettered in gilt, single gilt fillet frame to covers, turn-ins ruled in gilt, marbled endpapers, edges gilt. A fine copy. Gallup A34a.