Macavity
Book 1939 · Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (T. S. Eliot)
Ginger-haired master criminal of the cat world, "the Napoleon of Crime," whose alibi is never where the evidence is.
Macavity, the Mystery Cat, appears in T. S. Eliot's 1939 collection "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" — written for Eliot's godchildren and dedicated to "Tom Possum." The poem casts Macavity as the criminal mastermind of the cat underworld, with the running joke that whenever Scotland Yard finds the scene of a crime, "Macavity's not there." Eliot drew explicitly on Conan Doyle's Professor Moriarty, calling Macavity "the Napoleon of Crime" — a phrase Holmes uses for Moriarty in "The Final Problem." Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 musical Cats sets the poem to music, casting Macavity as the show's antagonist who kidnaps Old Deuteronomy.
0 words. Sources: see /methodology.
Tags
ginger
fictional
t-s-eliot
cats-musical
criminal-mastermind
Names like Macavity
Browse cat names matching Macavity and discover meaning, origin, and related names → see the Macavity name page.
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