Frolics in Catland

Onward, For Kitten and Country
Furry Fun For All

WAIN, Louis. Frolics in Catland. Father Tuck's "Travels in Fairyland" No. 9071. London: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd., n.d. [c. 1905?].

First edition. Oblong quarto (8 5/8 x 10 3/4 in; 218 x 272 mm). [26] pp. With eight full-page and numerous color text illustrations. Verses by Norman Gale.

Quarter red cloth over pictorial paper boards. Illustrated endpapers. Child's neat signature to ownership page. Fore-edge of first leaf neatly strengthened with tissue. Some edge and corner wear, slight toning to endpapers, still an excellent copy.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Louis Wain (1860-1939), the Edwardian cat artist who went mad, became a household name as an illustrator of cats, whom he depicted in all sorts of activities, from skating and playing cricket to driving motor cars, attending dances, and playing musical instruments. "He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves" (H.G. Wells).

"From 1883, Wain began to draw cats as they had never been drawn before, cats in humorous guises, in human situations, but always beautifully handled�[a]lthough he was sometimes forced to draw dogs before he became well-known!" (Houfe, The Dictionary of British Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 1800-1914).

Not in Dale. Unrecorded by Wood.

Price: $1,750

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