The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots

"Master Cat; or, The Booted Cat" commonly known in English as "Puss in Boots", is a European literary fairy tale about a cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand of a princess in marriage for his penniless and low-born master. The oldest record of written history dates from Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola, who included it in his The Facetious Nights of Straparola (c. 1550-53) in XIV-XV. Another version was published in 1634, by Giambattista Basile with the title Cagliuso. The tale was written in French at the close of the seventeenth century by Charles Perrault (1628–1703), a retired civil servant and member of the Académie française. The tale appeared in a handwritten and illustrated manuscript two years before its 1697 publication by Barbin in a collection of eight fairy tales by Perrault called Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The book was an instant success and remains popular.