CATLAND

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 st