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.
This is 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.
Hughes has pursued her cats down every alley ... Catland is a tubby tabby more than a sleek Siamese and while I would not lose any chapter — all are of interest — I might have wished each one brisker by a whisker.
Witty and protean ... Through humour, elegance and sheer knowledge, Hughes builds something remarkable ... Here and there, Hughes overplays her hand. Cats are a brilliant means through which to chart epochal shifts, but it’s going a bit too far to argue, as she does, that they were the instigators of change ... But on Victorian and Edwardian terrain, Hughes is near-omniscient.
