'HEAR & attend & listen; for this befell & behappened & became & was O my Best Beloved when the Tame animals were wild The Dog was wild & the Horse was wild & the Cow was wild & the Sheep was wild & the Pig was wild-as wild as wild could be-and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat He walked by himself & all places were alike to him' So begins the story of ' The Cat That Walked by Himself' one of many stories Kipling created to entertain his own children & those of his friends inventing ingenious explanations for such conundrums as ' How the Camel Got His Hump' In 1902 he wrote down these gloriously fanciful tales for publication as the Just So Stories This beautiful special gift edition presents the best-loved story ' The Cat that Walked by Himself' alongside ' How the Camel Got His Hump' ' How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin' & ' The Elephant's Child' & reproduces the author's delightfully evocative original illustrations