Mice were common in cities, too, and stray cats existed in city streets; also, cellar- and shop-cats had free access to the street, so a person living in a city would still be quite familiar with them. (Dickens, who lived in London, was a cat-lover.)
In any case, house cats should be kept at Maurice's boarding school in order to protect the cellar from mice, and would roam the garden. Children would be familiar with them - and newborn kittens would be a delight for them to see in the same way bird nests full of eggs were.
Cats could have also been kept at Cambridge (cellars, gardens, and even a boathouse existed there too) or at a random countryside house where Maurice may have vacationed. In short, what I found hard to believe wasn't that his family didn't have a cat, but that he had "never" been around them in order to know if he liked them or not. If he had said his mother wasn't too fond of cats, or he'd not paid enough thought to the matter, or something along those lines, my suspension of disbelief wouldn't have been cut off so abruptly. It's too weird to imagine children of the late 1800's (even city children) not familiar with cats in some way.
Did you ever read the original epilogue?
Yes, and I didn't like Kitty's hostility in it.
I do believe your story should be published after the end of the novel - you've captured their voices in such a perfect way that I still can't believe my luck at coming across your fic! I don't even want to read other Maurice fics now because I feel they won't measure up to this one.
After I started re-reading your H/D fics at Skyehawke last night, I got the perfect reminder on why I had you listed among my top 5 H/D authors back in 2005! :D The most delicious surprise was discovering you had written more fics since then - I feel so lucky I've more to read! :D The one with the crup, imp curse and mirror was hilarious! XD Off to read the rest now!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 05:51 pm (UTC)Mice were common in cities, too, and stray cats existed in city streets; also, cellar- and shop-cats had free access to the street, so a person living in a city would still be quite familiar with them. (Dickens, who lived in London, was a cat-lover.)
In any case, house cats should be kept at Maurice's boarding school in order to protect the cellar from mice, and would roam the garden. Children would be familiar with them - and newborn kittens would be a delight for them to see in the same way bird nests full of eggs were.
Cats could have also been kept at Cambridge (cellars, gardens, and even a boathouse existed there too) or at a random countryside house where Maurice may have vacationed.
In short, what I found hard to believe wasn't that his family didn't have a cat, but that he had "never" been around them in order to know if he liked them or not. If he had said his mother wasn't too fond of cats, or he'd not paid enough thought to the matter, or something along those lines, my suspension of disbelief wouldn't have been cut off so abruptly. It's too weird to imagine children of the late 1800's (even city children) not familiar with cats in some way.
Did you ever read the original epilogue?
Yes, and I didn't like Kitty's hostility in it.
I do believe your story should be published after the end of the novel - you've captured their voices in such a perfect way that I still can't believe my luck at coming across your fic! I don't even want to read other Maurice fics now because I feel they won't measure up to this one.
After I started re-reading your H/D fics at Skyehawke last night, I got the perfect reminder on why I had you listed among my top 5 H/D authors back in 2005! :D The most delicious surprise was discovering you had written more fics since then - I feel so lucky I've more to read! :D The one with the crup, imp curse and mirror was hilarious! XD Off to read the rest now!