Victorian Cat Family

Dress this feline family of 4 dolls in a wardrobe of full-color Victorian fashions and send them on adventures to the park, to the beach, to parties and more. 16 plates of color illustrations.

Dress this feline family of dolls in a wardrobe of full-color Victorian fashions and send them on adventures to the park, to the beach, to parties and more. 16 plates of color illustrations.

Paintings of domestic scenes featuring a family of cats and journal entries by the family matriarch present a satirical album of Victorian family life

Addressing the significance of the pet in the Victorian period, this book examines the role played by the domestic pet in delineating relations for each member of the "natural" family home. Flegel explores the pet in relation to the couple at the head of the house, to the children who make up the family’s dependents, and to the common familial "outcasts" who populate Victorian literature and culture: the orphan, the spinster, the bachelor, and the same-sex couple. Drawing upon both animal studies and queer theory, this study stresses the importance of the domestic pet in elucidating normative sexuality and (re)productivity within the familial home, and reveals how the family pet operates as a means of identifying aberrant, failed, or perverse familial and gender performances. The family pet, that is, was an important signifier in Victorian familial ideology of the individual family unit’s ability to support or threaten the health and morality of the nation in the Victorian period. Texts by authors such as Clara Balfour, Juliana Horatia Ewing, E. Burrows, Bessie Rayner Parkes, Anne Brontë, George Eliot, Frederick Marryat, and Charles Dickens speak to the centrality of the domestic pet to negotiations of gender, power, and sexuality within the home that both reify and challenge the imaginary structure known as the natural family in the Victorian period. This book highlights the possibilities for a familial elsewhere outside of normative and restrictive models of heterosexuality, reproduction, and the natural family, and will be of interest to those studying Victorian literature and culture, animal studies, queer studies, and beyond.

Bringing together some of the most colorful passages of cat-lore written during Queen Victoria's reign, a gift book for feline aficionados includes works by Edgar Allen Poe, Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson, and Edward Lear.

Generously quotating from poetry, nursery rhymes, and popular authors, Banks recounts the love affair between the Victorians and their cats--personified as the epitome of domestic virtue. Full-color photographs throughout.

Entertaining and informative, Pets in America is a portrait of Americans' relationships with the cats, dogs, birds, fishes, rodents, and other animals we call our own. More than 60 percent of U.S. households have pets, and America grows more pet-friendly every day. But as Katherine C. Grier demonstrates, the ways we talk about and treat our pets--as companions, as children, and as objects of beauty, status, or pleasure--have their origins long ago. Grier begins with a natural history of animals as pets, then discusses the changing role of pets in family life, new standards of animal welfare, the problems presented by borderline cases such as livestock pets, and the marketing of both animals and pet products. She focuses particularly on the period between 1840 and 1940, when the emotional, behavioral, and commercial characteristics of contemporary pet keeping were established. The story is filled with the warmth and humor of anecdotes from period diaries, letters, catalogs, and newspapers. Filled with illustrations reflecting the whimsy, the devotion, and the commerce that have shaped centuries of American pet keeping, Pets in America ultimately shows how the history of pets has evolved alongside changing ideas about human nature, child development, and community life. This book accompanies a museum exhibit, "Pets in America," which opens at the McKissick Museum in Columbia, South Carolina, in December 2005 and will travel to five other cities from May 2006 through May 2008.

The cat--that most graceful, stubborn, and agile of animals--has been a favorite subject of artists the world over from prehistory to the modern day. A spectacular 7,000-year-old engraving in Libya depicts a catfight. Figures modeled by the Babylonians remind us of their belief that the souls of priests were escorted to paradise by a helpful cat. Pablo Picasso was known to have loved cats and famously portrayed them as savage predators. In Victorian times, cats were depicted in loving family groups with mothers caring for their playful kittens. Today, the cat is one of the most popular domestic pets on the planet, and feline art is a hugely popular theme across the world. In his latest eye-catching book, best-selling author Desmond Morris tells the compelling story of cats in art. He explores feline art in its many forms, tracing its history from ancient rock paintings and spectacular Egyptian art to the work of old masters, avant-garde representations, and the depiction of cats in cartoons. Morris discusses the various ways in which artists have approached the subject throughout history, weaving illuminating stories with rarely seen images. The result is a beautifully illustrated book that will delight anyone with a Kitty, Max, or Tigger in their life.

"Victorian Cat Tales, Book I: The Life and Times of Rose and Leopold" introduces a handsome orange tiger cat from Germany named Leopold, who travels to England to meet Rose, a beautiful cat who lives in the cellar of Queen Victoria's home, Buckingham Palace. In Victorian Cat Tales, Book II: Rose and Leopold Living Royally, adventures continue as Leopold fences flowers, Rose proposes marriage, and the two have a wedding breakfast fit for a queen. Come to Victorian England once again to share in the fun as Rose and Leopold court, marry, and live royally. The cats' lives intersect with the history of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. As you follow the cats' adventures, you will also learn about life in Victorian England.

4 mouse dolls plus costumes for Midsummer Eve's Ball, visiting a castle, first day of school, holidays, more. Numerous accessories.