The article defines five categories of animals in literature: i) morally instructive (Sentimentalism), ii) the "outsider", iii) moral superiority of animals as against humans, iv) the absurd, v) the threatening. The first category survives right through to the present, especially in children's literature and, in any case, the categories overlap, with Russian literature defying any attempts at "periodisation": the absurd is found in Gogol as well as Voinovich; the morally instructive is in Tolstoy and Vladimov. The moral superiority of animals is especially prevalent in Twentieth Century Russian literature and is graphically epitomised in Shalamov's affection for cats in preference to human beings.