Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World
*Shortlisted for the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize*
A Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year
A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year
A Spectator Book of the Year
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year
A New Yorker Book of the Year
Some 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, Wain’s 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
‘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 isn’t 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 -
‘What’s 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 -