Kathryn Hughes explores changing Victorian attitudes to cats and charts the emergence of the modern moggy through the life and career of artist Louis Wain
At the end of the 19th century, Britain and America entered the grip of a cat craze that saw the humble moggy catapulted from urban nuisance to beloved household pet. Historian Kathryn Hughes speaks to Charlotte Hodgman about 19th-century attitudes to cats, and how Louis Wain’s anthropomorphic drawings helped us fall in love with all things feline.
Kathryn Hughes is the author of Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World (Fourth Estate, 2024)