Puss in Boots

"Puss in Boots" (French: "Le Maistre Chat, or le Chat Botté") is a literary fairy tale by Charles Perrault (1628–1703), a retired civil servant and member of the Académie française. The tale was first published by Barbin in Paris, France in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passe with eight other tales by Perrault that included "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Little Red Riding Hood". The book was an instant success. Perrault's Histoires was first published in English in 1729 and launched the legend of Mother Goose in the English-speaking world. "Puss in Boots" has been adapted to various media including opera and film.
==Plot summary==
The tale opens with a poor young miller's son receiving his inheritance—a cat. The feline is no ordinary cat however but one who requests and receives a pair of boots. Determined to make his master's fortune, the cat bags a rabbit in the forest and presents it to the king as a gift from his master, the fictional "Marquis of Carabas". The cat continues making gifts of game to the king for several months.
One day, knowing the king and his daughter are traveling by coach along the riverbank, the cat persuades his master to strip and enter the river. When the king nears, the cat tells him that his master, the "Marquis", has been bathing and robbed of his clothes. The king has the lad brought from the river, dressed in a splendid suit of clothes, and seated in the coach with his daughter. The princess falls in love with him at once.
The cat hurries ahead of the coach, ordering the countryfolk along the road to tell the king that the land roundabout belongs to the "Marquis of Carabas". The cat then enters a castle inhabited by an ogre who is capable of transforming himself into a number of creatures. The cat tricks the ogre into changing himself into a mouse, then pounces upon and devours him. The king arrives at the castle, and, impressed with the vast estates of the bogus "Marquis", gives the lad the princess in marriage. 
==Sources==
The trickster cat was not Perrault's invention but had several precursors. In the Panchatantra, a collection of Hindu tales from the fifth century A.D., a cat is determined to make his fortune in a king's palace but fares much less well than Perrault's Puss in Boots. In 1553, "Costantino Fortunato", a tale with a similar theme and outline by [[[Giovanni Francesco Straparola]], was published in Venice, Italy in a collection called Le piacevoli Notti (The Facetious Nights of Straparola), the first European storybook to include fairy tales. An edition of Straparola was published in France in 1560. Another tale with a trickster cat theme was published in Giambattista Basile's Pentamerone in 1634 though neither the collection nor the tale were published in France during Perrault's lifetime. It is almost certain Perrault was completely unaware of the antecedents to his tale and his exact source remains unknown.
 
==Composition==
It has been assumed that Perrault's son Pierre Darmancour was in part responsible for the composition of Histoires. Its dedication to Elisabeth Charlotte d'Orleans, the niece of Louis XIV, is signed 'P. Darmancour' and as been cited as evidence that his father was not the author. Perrault senior, however, was known to have been long interested in 'contes de veille' or 'contes de ma mere l'oye', and in 1693 published a versified rendition of "The Ridiculous Wishes" (Les Souhaits Ridicules), and, in 1694, a tale with a Cinderella theme called "Donkeyskin" (Peau d'Ane). Further, a manuscript of five of the tales (including "Puss in Boots") exists dated 1695 when Pierre Darmancour was sixteen and quite unlikely to have been interested in recording fairy tales. Darmancour showed no literary inclinations, became a soldier, and, when he died in 1700, his obituary made no mention of any connection with the tales. However, when Perrault senior died in 1703, the newspaper alluded to his being responsible for "The Sleeping Beauty", which the paper had published in 1696.
==Publication history==
"Le Maistre Chat, ou le Chat Botté" was first published by Barbin in Paris in January 1697 in a collection of tales called Histoires ou contes du temps passe. The collection included "Sleeping Beauty", "Little Red Ridinghood", "Bluebeard", "Diamonds and Toads", "Cinderella", "Riquet a la Houppe", and "Hop o' my Thumb" and displayed a frontispiece depicting an old woman telling tales to a group of three children beneath a placard inscribed 'CONTES DE MA MERE L'OYE'. The book was an instant success.
"Le Maistre Chat" was first translated into English as "Puss in Boots" by Robert Samber in 1729 and published in London by J. Pote and R. Montagu with its original companion tales in Histories, or Tales of Past Times, By M. Perrault. The book was advertised in June 1729 as being "very entertaining and instructive for children". A frontispiece similar to the one of the first French edition appeared in the English edition and launched the Mother Goose legend in the English-speaking world.
==Commentaries==
Iona and Peter Opie note that "the tale is unusual in that the hero little deserves his good fortune, that is if his poverty, his being a third child, and his unquestioning acceptance of the cat's sinful instructions, are not nowadays looked upon as virtues." The Opies suggest the cat be acclaimed the prince of 'con' men as few swindlers have been so successful before or since. 
The morality of "Puss in Boots" has long caused critical comment. The nineteenth century editor George Cruikshank, for example, took exception to "a system of imposture being rewarded by the greatest worldly advantages." 
Jack Zipes observes in Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion that Perrault "sought to portray ideal types to reinforce the standards of the civilizing process set by upper-class French society." A composite portrait of Perrault's heroines, for example, reveals the author's idealized female of upper-class society is graceful, beautiful, polite, industrious, well groomed, reserved, patient, and even somewhat stupid as intelligence in womankind (for Perrault) is dangerous. Perrault's heroine passively waits for the right man to come along, recognize her virtues, and make her his wife. He acts, she waits. If she demonstrates anything, it is submission to the male.
A composite of Perrault's male heroes, however, indicates the opposite of his heroines: his male characters are not particularly handsome, but they are active, brave, ambitious, deft, and use their wit, intelligence, and great civility to work their way up the social ladder and achieve their goals. Unlike the tales dealing with submissive heroines waiting for marriage, the male-centered tales suggest social status and achievement are more important than marriage. The virtues of Perrault's heroes reflect upon the courtly bourgeoisie of the era and upon Perrault himself, a successful civil servant.
Puss is "the epitome of the educated bougeois secretary who serves his master with complete devotion and diligence." He notes that the cat has enough wit and manners to impress the king and the intelligence to defeat the ogre and arrange a royal marriage for his low born master. Puss's career is capped by his elevation to grand seigneur. Zipes reminds us of Perrault's double moral: "one stresses the importance of possessing industrie and savoir faire while the other extols the virtues of dress, countenance, and youth to win the heart of a princess." 
==Adaptations==
===Theatre===
In 1797, Ludwig Tieck published Der gestiefelte Kater, a dramatic satire based on the Puss in Boots tale. 
===Music===
In 1913, César Cui composed Puss in Boots, a short children's opera which was first performed in Rome in 1915.
===Film and television===
In 1922, Walt Disney created a black and white silent short based on the tale. Puss appears as a character voiced by Antonio Banderas in Shrek 2 and Shrek The Third.
In 1985, Faerie Tale Theatre televised a live-action adaptation starring Ben Vereen and Gregory Hines. 
==References==
===Footnotes===
===Bibliography===
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Category:1697 short stories
Category:Fairy tales
Category:Fictional cats
Category:Works by Charles Perrault