12/04/2025
Mark Twain gave the world Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and some of the most devastatingly sharp sentences in American literature. But there was one thing he loved with a sincerity that needed no satire, no wit, no filter at all: cats. Not a few. Not a handful. At times, as many as nineteen lived in his home, each one named with the flair of a man who believed cats deserved personalities as grand as their presence.
He named them Apollinaris, Zoroaster, Beelzebub, Sour Mash, Buffalo Bill, and Soapy Sal. Twain never understood why people saddled cats with plain names when they could give them titles worthy of emperors or outlaws. “I simply can’t resist a cat,” he once wrote. “Particularly a purring one.” And he meant it. Friends recalled him interrupting conversations mid-sentence when a cat strolled into the room, scooping the animal into his lap and resuming the discussion as if nothing had happened.
But one cat, more than any other, captured his heart: a glossy black feline named Bambino.
Bambino originally belonged to Twain’s daughter Clara, but the moment he entered the household, he became the favorite of everyone. He was a striking cat—large, velvet-furred, intensely black except for a faint patch of white on his chest. Twain adored him. The feeling was mutual; Bambino often perched on Twain’s manuscripts or curled at his feet while he wrote.
Then one day, Bambino slipped out of the house and vanished.
Twain was devastated. This wasn’t just a pet wandering off—this was a family member. So he took the most practical step available in 1905: he placed an advertisement in the New York American. But this was Mark Twain, so his “Lost Cat” notice wasn’t ordinary. His description was almost literary:
“Large and intensely black; thick, velvety fur; faint white mark on breast; difficult to find in the dark.”
He offered a reward. He begged for Bambino’s safe return. And the city responded.
People flocked to his home carrying black cats of every shape and size. Some came earnestly hoping to reunite the cat with his family. Others came simply for the chance to meet Mark Twain. He greeted each visitor, inspected each cat carefully, thanked them, and gently sent them home when the animal was not Bambino.
None were.
Then, just as quietly as he had disappeared, Bambino returned home on his own—strolling through the door as if his absence had been a trivial errand. This was, Twain observed, the most perfectly catlike resolution imaginable. The ad had been unnecessary. Bambino returned when it pleased him, not a moment sooner.
Twain loved that about cats. Their independence. Their serenity. Their complete indifference to human anxieties. He admired their intelligence and their dignity. “They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent creatures I know,” he said, “outside of the girl you love, of course.”
To Twain, cats revealed the true nature of a person. “When a man loves cats,” he wrote, “I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.” He felt that how someone treated animals—creatures with no power and no voice—revealed their character more honestly than any polished social performance.
And this wasn’t a sentimental pose. Twain lived in an era when animal cruelty was common and rarely challenged. He advocated publicly for animal welfare at a time when such advocacy was unusual. He defended animals in essays, speeches, and letters. Behind the biting wit and public persona was a man who believed deeply in kindness.
Much of Twain’s writing skewered the hypocrisies of human society. But when he wrote about animals—especially cats—he dropped the satire. His affection was direct, unguarded, and endlessly warm. He never pretended cats were lesser beings. If anything, he suspected they were superior. They didn’t chase fame, status, or approval. They simply lived—comfortably, confidently, honestly.
Twain died in 1910, but stories of his cats remain woven into his legacy. The names he gave them—Beelzebub, Sour Mash, Zoroaster—still make people smile more than a century later. His letter about Bambino still circulates as one of the loveliest lost-pet notices ever written. The image of America’s greatest satirist writing with a purring cat draped across his lap humanizes him in a way nothing else can.
In the end, Twain left behind masterpieces of literature, lines quoted across generations, and commentary that still slices through human folly with surgical precision. But he also left a quieter truth: a life shared with animals is a richer, gentler life.
Some hearts write novels. Some hearts deliver cutting wit.
And some hearts, like Twain’s, are at their wisest when they’re simply listening to a cat purr.
