The volume met with instantaneous success. It was the subject
of comment and conversation everywhere and passed rapidly through several
editions. There was a general feeling that a new writer had suddenly
appeared, with a wit and wisdom peculiarly his own, precisely like which
nothing had previously existed in our literature. To the later editions
of the work was added an account of a cat which had been presented to the
author by the Stowes. For that reason it was given from the Christian
name of the husband of the novelist the title of Calvin. To this John was
sometimes prefixed, as betokening from the purely animal point of view a
certain resemblance to the imputed grimness and earnestness of the great
reformer. There was nothing in the least exaggerated in the account which
Warner gave of the character and conduct of this really remarkable member
of the feline race. No biography was ever truer; no appreciation was ever
more sympathetic; and in the long line of cats none was ever more worthy
to have his story truly and sympathetically told. All who had the fortune
to see Calvin in the flesh will recognize the accuracy with which his
portrait was drawn. All who read the account of him, though not having
seen him, will find it one of the most charming of descriptions. It has
the fullest right to be termed a cat classic.
With the publication of "My Summer in a Garden" Warner was launched upon
a career of authorship which lasted without cessation during the thirty
years that remained of his life.
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