Beware the Category: Human

Robert McKay I am a scholar of literature produced from the last third of the 20thcentury to the present. This is an era marked by world-changing discoveries about nonhuman animals’ intelligence, their rich capacities for feeling and embodied experience, their complex emotional and social lives, and the rights and human duties that many people recognise … Continue reading Beware the Category: Human →

Beware the Cat at the RSC

In July we had the privilege of bringing the new stage adaptation of Beware the Cat to the RSC's The Other Place. With the help of an amazing RSC team, we were able to share Baldwin's story with a sold-out audience. Here is a sneak peak of Hugo Glendinning's wonderful photos. Hugo has also made … Continue reading Beware the Cat at the RSC →

Putting the Cat on its feet: Baldwin’s ‘Beware the Cat’ and the process of stage adaptation

by Frances Babbage William Baldwin’s obscure sixteenth-century novel Beware the Cat is an improbable and distinctly challenging source for a dramatic adaptation. While the central storyline sounds rather promising – a curious scholar makes a potion that lets him understand the ‘secret language’ of cats! – at the level of accessibility, Baldwin is a very long … Continue reading Putting the Cat on its feet: Baldwin’s ‘Beware the Cat’ and the process of stage adaptation →

Reading with Pictures

by Penny McCarthy I am an artist whose recent research examines the nature of artistic provenance in relation to the archive and makes extensive use of intricate pencil drawings, often focusing on the visual aspects of books and texts. For me, drawing functions as a mimetic practice: I make close copies from various sources such as … Continue reading Reading with Pictures →

A brief history of literary cats

by Charlotte Potter In Beware the Cat, William Baldwin asks the provocative question of whether cats can talk and reason. But he wasn't alone in wondering this. For centuries, writers have been inspired by the mysterious nature of cats, and English literature is populated by many eloquent, maverick, felines. Here are five of the most … Continue reading A brief history of literary cats →