Over 210 images trace the cat's long residence in the human imagination — sacred in ancient Egypt, anthropomorphised in Victorian illustration, ubiquitous now on runways and screens. This is less a book to read cover to cover than one to fall into: Warhol beside a maneki-neko, Hiroshige beside Thom Browne, the Cheshire Cat beside an artist's own pet, caught mid-stretch in the corner of a studio. The pairings are playful, but the argument underneath is serious — that no other animal has been so consistently pressed into service as a mirror for our own obsessions, anxieties, and taste. A foreword by Hannah Shaw and an essay by curator Leïla Jarbouai give the collection its scholarly ballast, though the book wears its erudition lightly. Bound in a cover carrying a single curled black cat, watchful as ever.
