Edgar Allan Poe once belonged to a house cat. Her name was Cattarina. Cattarina lived with the poet, his wife Virginia, and her mother Maria Clemm in snug little houses both in Philadelphia and in New York. The Poe household was so close that none stood on ceremony. The great poet was Eddie, Mrs. Poe was Sissy, and Mrs. Clemm was Muddy. Even Cattarina had nicknames; sometimes she was called Callers, sometimes Kate. Sometimes Cattarina spelt her name with one T, and sometimes with two. That comes from living in a literary household. Sometimes Eddie signed his name E. A. Poe, sometimes Edgar Poe, once as Edgar Perry, as well as Edgar Allan Poe.
No one knows when Cattarina first became a member of the Poe family. The great Poe scholar Hervey Allen places Cattarina with the Poes either late in 1839 or early 1840 when the family moved to Coates Street in Philadelphia and "Catarina, the cat, then in her burgeoning kittenhood, purred on the ample plateau of Mrs. Clemm's lap."
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