SOURCE: Bonahue, Edward T., Jr. “‘I Know the Place and the Persons’: The Play of Textual Frames in Baldwin's Beware the Cat.” Studies in Philology 91, no. 3 (summer 1994): 283-300.

In the following essay, expanded from a lecture originally delivered in 1992, Bonahue examines the textual framing produced by the several component narratives in Beware the Cat.

The reader or critic seeking entry to the fictional world of William Baldwin's Beware the Cat could do worse than consult, as a kind of aesthetic pylon, the woodcut of three animals appearing on the verso of the first edition's title page (Figure 1). (Figure 1 omitted.)¹ The largest and fiercest of this beastly trio crouches at the top, menacing the viewer with sharp fangs and claws, indicating its ability (and impending willingness) to inflict pain. The second, considerably smaller and differently proportioned, scurries to the left with captured prey clenched in its teeth. The third...