In a hotly contested deal, the life story of Dewey, a rescued cat who lived for 19 years in a library in a small town in Iowa, has sold for about $1.25 million to Grand Central Publishing. With an eye toward creating the feline answer to the best-selling Marley & Me, John Grogan's memoir of his misbehaving yellow Labrador retriever, Grand Central bought the book, currently titled Dewey, a Small Town, a Library and the World's Most Beloved Cat, on Monday by making an offer high enough to pre-emptively shut down an auction.

"You can't underestimate the market out there for people who love animals," said Karen Kosztolnyik, the senior editor at Grand Central who will edit the book; co-authors will be Vicki Myron, the head librarian in Spencer, Iowa; and Bret Witter, a former editorial director at Health Communications, the publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

Dewey, which was sold on the basis of a 45-page proposal with about 10 photos of the fluffy orange cat, will tell the story of how the kitten was found in the late-night book drop of the public library in Spencer, a town in the northwest part of the state, and adopted by Ms. Myron and the other librarians. Slowly, over the course of his 19-year life, Dewey became a town mascot who lifted the spirits of residents hit hard by the 1980s farming crisis. In the process he attracted the attention of tourists, cat-calendar makers and filmmakers. He appeared in Puss in Books: Adventures of the Library Cat, a 1997 documentary, and another film made by Japanese documentarians. When he died last November, his obituary ran in more than 250 publications, including USA Today and The Washington Post.

Jamie Raab, publisher of Grand Central (formerly called Warner Books), said she was hooked on Dewey just two pages into the proposal, which she read last Thursday. Ms. Raab said she was so excited by the proposal that she got out of bed at midnight to send e-mail to Ms. Kosztolnyik, saying, "Let's buy this book."