Nicola Bayley

She wrote and illustrated the 1998 book, The Necessary Cat.

The 1990 book The Mousehole Cat, written by Antonia Barber and illustrated by Bayley, won the British Book Award for illustrated children's books.

In 1977, her book One Old Oxford Ox was published, containing a collection of tongue twisters. In 1984, she created the Copycat series, which included the books Parrot Cat, Polar Bear Cat, Elephant Cat, Spider Cat and Crab Cat.

Richard Adams was inspired by Bayley's illustration for the nursery rhyme, "Three Thick Thumping Tigers Taking Toast for Tea", and he subsequently wrote a prose poem based on her work. The poem was turned into a book called The Tyger Voyage, which Bayley illustrated. Released in 1976, it was Bayley's second book published by Jonathan Cape.

Publisher Tom Maschlerer noticed her final portfolio from the Royal College of Art and commissioned her to illustrate a book. This led to her first book, Nicola Bayley's Book of Nursery Rhymes, being published by Jonathan Cape in 1975.

Nicola Bayley (born August 18, 1949) is a Singaporean-born British children's book illustrator and author. She is most known for her illustrations of cats, including in the books The Tyger Voyage by Richard Adams, The Mousehole Cat by Antonia Barber, Katje, The Windmill Cat by Gretchen Woelfle and others.

Bayley was born on August 18, 1949 in Singapore. She grew up in China and Hampshire, England and attended an English boarding school. She originally planned to study to become a fashion designer. Instead, she attended St. Martin's School of Art in London and studied graphic design, focusing on illustration in her later years there under Fritz Wegner and John Farman. After, she studied at the Royal College of Art in London under Quentin Blake.