Mourka: The Autobiography of a Cat

London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1965. First edition in the UK. 6to (26x19cm), original pink cloth with silver-lettered spine, in prize-clipped dust jacket. 60pp. Text in English. Dust jacket slightly chipped and rubbed to spine-ends and edges. Minor shelfwear and sunning to bottom cover edge of cloth, else fine in good dust jacket.

Tanaquil Le Clercq, was one of the great ballerinas of the 20th century. Born in Paris and raised in New York, Tanaquil Le Clercq received a scholarship in 1941, for the George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet, where she became one of their prodigies.

In the age of 15, Le Clercq appeared in the play Resurgence, by George Balanchine, that was commissioned for a March of Dimes benefit for polio at the Waldorf-Astoria. The play was about a young girl, played by Le Clerq, who got contracted by polio. The disease was played by Balanchine, and in the end the young girl became paralyzed and fell to the floor, but when children tossed dimes, she rose and danced again.

In a stranger than fiction way, this event sadly anticipated her future.

In 1952, she became the fifth wife of George Balanchine, one of the most influential 20th-century choreographers, and the artistic director of the New York City Ballet. During the New York City Ballet’s 1956 European tour, Le Clercq collapsed in Copenhagen due to polio and was paralyzed from the waist down, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. This tragedy was mayor news around the world, that even the Queen of Denmark came to visit her in the hospital.

In 1964, almost ten years after the tragic end of her career, she threw herself in work and published a book, together with the photographer and dancer, Martha Swope, who was the official photographer of the New York City Ballet and the Martha Graham and Dance Company.

Mourka: The Autobiography of a Cat, presents the life of Mourka, a New York alley cat, who got a adapted by George, or as Le Clercq states in the book, “[Balanchine] offered him a scholarship to his ballet shool”. A picture of Mourka by Marha Swope, got published in Life Magazine, depicting one of his astonishing leaps, which made Mourka the most famous ballet-cat in America.

A charming and entertaining book, written by Tanaquil Le Clercq, with photographs by Marha Swope.