The Owl and the Pussycat

For the film starring Barbra Streisand and George Segal, see The Owl and the Pussycat (film).

Edward Lear's illustration of the Owl and the Pussycat

"The Owl and the Pussycat" is a nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1871.

Background

Lear wrote the poem for a three-year-old girl, Janet Symonds, the daughter of Lear's friend poet John Addington Symonds and his wife Catherine Symonds. The term runcible spoon was coined for the poem.

Plot

The "piggy-wig" in the land of Bong-trees

"The Owl and the Pussycat" features four anthropomorphic animals – an owl, a cat, a pig, and a turkey – and tells the story of the love between the title characters who marry in the land "where the Bong-tree grows".

The Owl and the Pussycat set out to sea in a pea green boat with honey and "plenty of money" wrapped in a five pound note. The Owl serenades the Pussycat while gazing at the stars and strumming on a small guitar. He describes her as beautiful. The Pussycat responds by describing the Owl as an "elegant fowl" and compliments him on his singing. She urges they marry but they don't have a ring. They sail away for a year and a day to a land where Bong-trees grow and discover a pig with a ring in his nose in a wood. They buy the ring for a shilling and are married the next day by a turkey. They dine on mince and quince using a runcible spoon, then dance hand-in-hand on the sand in the moonlight.

Portions of an unfinished sequel, "The Children of the Owl and the Pussycat", were first published posthumously in 1938.

Other media

• The story has been set to music and animated many times, including by Igor Stravinsky, John Rutter, Victor Hely-Hutchinson, Burl Ives, Humphrey Searle and Laurie Anderson.
• Elton Hayes made a recording of the Hely-Hutchinson setting for Parlophone in 1953. It became a regular item on Children's Favourites and was one of six Edward Lear recordings he made.
• It was the central focus for a 1968 children's musical play about Lear's nonsense poems, entitled The Owl and the Pussycat went to See.... The play was written by Sheila Ruskin and David Wood.
• The title was borrowed for an unrelated stage play and subsequent 1970 movie starring Barbra Streisand and George Segal.
• Igor Stravinsky set it to music in 1966. A recording of the work was made under the supervision of the composer for Columbia Records.
• In 1971, a cartoon based on the poem was made by Weston Woods.
• In the 1968 Disney animated feature Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, later a part of 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the character Owl mentions a relative of his who supposedly "went to sea in a pea-green boat" with a Pussycat.
• The two main characters were the inspiration for X the Owl and Henrietta Pussycat in the "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
• Laurie Anderson composed and recorded a version titled Beautiful Pea Green Boat that appeared on her 1994 album Bright Red.
• Eric Idle, a former member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, wrote a children's book entitled The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat which was based on the poem. It is an extended story about when the Owl and the Pussycat were attacked by a band of ruthless rats who were out to steal pies. It was illustrated by Wesla Weller and was first published in 1996 with an audio version which included some songs by Idle himself.

External links

• The Owl and the Pussy-cat translation collection
• Reely's Poetry Pages - audio of The Owl and The Pussycat (Anthology of English Verse, Vol. 1)
• Free audiobook from LibriVox
• "Pea Green Boat", by comedian Stewart Lee.
• Free audio of the Owl and the Pussycat by Storynory
• mp3 by Dawn Miceli from The Dawn and Drew Show
• Tales of Curiosity short video, text and images of The Owl and the Pussy-cat
• Setting of poem as a song by Ronald Corp performed by Mark Stone and Simon Lepper