Thomasina (subtitled The Cat Who Thought She Was God) was published by Doubleday in 1957. It is Gallico’s most structurally inventive work: narrated partly by Thomasina herself (a ginger cat who recounts her own death, her journey through Bast-Ra’s Egyptian paradise, and her return to life) and partly in third person (following the humans whose lives revolve around her).
Andrew MacDhui is a veterinarian in a Scottish village — competent, respected, emotionally frozen since his wife’s death. His daughter Mary loves Thomasina with the absolute devotion children give to animals. When Thomasina falls ill, MacDhui — applying the cold rationalism that has become his defense against feeling — puts the cat down without consulting Mary. The child’s grief is devastating: she withdraws into silence, refusing to eat, refusing to engage with a father who has shown himself capable of destroying what she loves.
Thomasina, meanwhile, narrates her passage through death: she travels to a feline afterlife (an Egyptian paradise ruled by Bast-Ra, goddess of cats) before being returned to the world — resurrected by Lori, a mysterious red-haired woman living alone in the woods outside the village, who heals animals and is suspected by the locals of witchcraft.
The novel’s three threads (MacDhui’s emotional resurrection, Mary’s recovery, and Thomasina’s literal resurrection) converge as Lori draws the broken family back together through her healing gift. The religious symbolism is deliberate but not heavy-handed: Thomasina’s death and resurrection parallel the spiritual deaths and resurrections of the human characters, and Gallico allows the cat’s theological confidence (she genuinely believes she is a goddess) to stand as both comedy and genuine spiritual insight.
Disney adapted the novel as The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964).
Collecting Thomasina
First edition (Doubleday, New York, 1957): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $30–$75
- Signed first edition: $75–$200
- Without jacket: $8–$15
- Disney film tie-in edition (1964): $5–$12
Gallico’s most emotionally complex novel and a favorite among cat lovers, children’s literature collectors, and readers who appreciate fiction that takes animals seriously as spiritual beings.