Puss in Boots, fictional character, the cat in the fairy tale of the same name (in French, “Le Maître Chat ou le chat botté”), as retold by Charles Perrault in Contes de ma mère l’oye (1697; Tales of Mother Goose). The brash Puss in Boots tricks an ogre into transforming himself into a mouse, which Puss promptly gobbles up, so that Puss’s master can appropriate the ogre’s wealth and win the hand and heart of a beautiful princess