Cecil Raleigh was the pseudonym of Abraham Cecil Francis Fothergill Rowlands, an English actor and playwright.
Theatrical poster for The Great Ruby
Dick Whittington and His Cat
Dick Whittington and His Cat is the English folklore surrounding the real-life Richard Whittington, wealthy merchant and later Lord Mayor of London. The legend describes his rise from poverty-stricken childhood with the fortune he made through the sale of his cat to a rat-infested country. However, the real Whittington did not come from a poor family of common stock, and there is no compelling evidence supporting the stories about the cat, or even whether he owned one.
Dick Whittington buys a cat from a woman. Coloured cut from a children's book published in New York, c. 1850 (Dunigan's edition).
From title page of The Famous and Remarkable History of Sir Richard Whittington, Three Times Lord-Mayor of London (1770), Thomas and John Fleet, printers. —Boston Public Library
Dick Whittington and His Cat, a statue in the Guildhall, London.—Laurence Tindall (1999).
Richard Whittington and his Cat, considered a "fictitious portrait".—Benoist's engraving, after a lost painting at Mercers' Hall, from The New Wonderful Museum, and Extraordinary Magazine (1805).
