Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World

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A Times and Sunday Times Book of the YearA Wall Street Journal Book of the YearA Spectator Book of the YearA Times Literary Supplement Book of the YearA New Yorker Book of the YearSome called it a craze. To others it was a cult. Join prize-winning historian Kathryn Hughes to discover how Britain fell in love with cats and ushered in a new era.

'Smart, gorgeously written cultural history TLS

Delightful Guardian

Excellent Spectator

Joyous cultural history The Times

He invented a whole cat world declared H. G. Wells of Louis Wain, the Edwardian artist whose anthropomorphic kittens made him a household name. His drawings were irresistible but Catland was more than the creation of one eccentric imagination. It was an attitude a way of being in society while discreetly refusing to follow its rules.

As cat capitalism boomed in the spectacular Edwardian age, prized animals changed hands for hundreds of pounds and a new industry sprung up to cater for their every need. Cats were no longer basement-dwelling pest-controllers, but stylish cultural subversives, more likely to flaunt a magnificent ruff and a pedigree from Persia. Wherever you found old conventions breaking down, there was a cat at the centre of the storm.

Whether they were flying aeroplanes, sipping champagne or arguing about politics, Wains feline cast offered a sly take on the restless and risky culture of the post-Victorian world. No-one experienced these uncertainties more acutely than Wain himself, confined to a mental asylum while creating his most iconic work. Catland is a fascinating and fabulous unravelling of our obsession with cats, and the man dedicated to chronicling them.

Through humour, elegance and sheer knowledge, Hughes builds something remarkable Literary Review

If a Louis Wain cat were reading this book, he would raise his topper in tribute The Times

Catland is a tour de force of (cat) history: sleek, elegant and razor-sharp when needed History Today

Excellent Hughes reveals a fascinating, forgotten aspect of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain: how the British fell in love with felines Daily Mail

An entertaining and often surprising cultural history typically delivered in an inviting spirit of delight New Yorker

Reviews

Hughes' excellent, curiosity-stuffed book is about the moment towards the end of the 19th century when cats started to be afforded the same dignity as dogs Spectator

A darting, hobby-horsical, hugely interesting book with the feel of a passion project rather than a sobersides work of history. But its ease and authority come from how Hughes as a historian is completely at home in the era under discussion, offering feline sideways glances at class, economics, urbanisation, eugenics, gender politics and much else besides' Guardian

Hughes has a brilliant eye for absurdities and untold stories. This isnt a gushing ode to pussycats but a wide-ranging history of a period of huge upheaval' i News

Consistently fascinating A tremendous literary feat Kirkus Review, starred

Cat lovers, and even the cat-indifferent, are encouraged to put their trust in Hughes. Catland is a delight. This is history as told by someone whose knowledge of and infectious enthusiasm for her subject is matched by obvious delight and warm, expressive writing New York Times

Whats most delightful about Catland is how cleverly it explores so many corners of society. In the life and work of this peculiar illustrator, Hughes manages to open up a fresh venue on our magnificent cultural obsession Washington Post

A sparkling account of the 'great cat mania' that engulfed whole societies between roughly 1870 and 1920 and whose effects are still with us today Wall Street Journal

Kathryn Hughes is one of our best loved and most incisively witty social historians brilliantly researched and unforgettable' Miranda Seymour

Catland is a one-off, a book of high whimsy and deep research, a work of great subtly that is also startlingly original. Part-biography, part-social history, Catland is its own breed of historical investigation Amanda Foreman

Hughes combines ingenuity, insight, and immense literary charm A perfect gift for cat lovers, art lovers, and readers of all persuasions Elaine Showalter

Author Bio

Kathryn Hughes is the prize-winning author of four previous books on Victorian social history, including a biography of Mrs Beeton which was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and adapted for the BBC. For the past twenty years she has been a literary critic at the Guardian and writes regularly on books, art and culture for the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement. Kathryn is currently Professor Emerita at the University of East Anglia, and a Fellow of both the Royal Literary Society and the Royal Historical Society.