The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel

Thus proclaims Archy the free verse poet, after he is reincanated as a cockroach. Generations of readers have delighted in these poems which first appeared in the newspaper columns of the great American humorist Don Marquis (1878-1937), who was frequently compared to Mark Twain.

The saga revolves around the escapades of our narrator Archy, the philosophical cockroach who was once a poet, and his pal Mehitabel, a streetwise alley cat who was once Cleopatra -and has the morals to prove it.

Reincarnated as the lowest creatures on the social scale, they prowl the rowdy streets of New York City in the age of jazz, gangsters and Prohibition. Along the way they encounter mummies, ghosts, and the egocentric toad Warty Bliggens.

For the first time ever, the poems -including many that have never before reprinted- are presented in their original order of publication, with full notes to explain the hectic era they chronicle. No wonder E.B. White called these outrageous satires, which helped inspire Charlotte's Web, "a distinguished work in American letters."