Portrait Of Cats

Portrait of Cats by Angela Sayer, published by Hamlyn in 1975, is a lovingly illustrated celebration of the domestic cat: an animal which has spent several thousand years perfecting the art of appearing independent while relying almost entirely on somebody else to open tins.

This is a proper old-fashioned cat book, from the era before the internet discovered that felines could support an entire global economy of videos, memes, merchandise and people narrating their pets’ internal thoughts in improbable voices.

In 1975, if you wanted to look at lots of cats, you bought a book.

A civilised arrangement.

Angela Sayer’s Portrait of Cats brings together information and images devoted to the many forms, breeds and characteristics of domestic cats, presenting them with the mixture of admiration and fascination that the species has been extracting from humans since antiquity.

And cats make very good photographic subjects.

They are elegant.

They are expressive.

They can look aristocratic while sitting in a laundry basket.

They can stare directly into a camera with the quiet contempt of someone reviewing your entire life.

Few animals possess such range.

The book reflects a period when pedigree cats, breed standards and formal cat showing occupied a particularly visible place in popular animal publishing.

Long-haired cats look magnificently impractical.

Siamese cats look as though they have opinions.

British Shorthairs look reassuringly solid.

And assorted other breeds demonstrate the remarkable variety humans have managed to produce from an animal that still fundamentally wants to sleep somewhere warm and knock something off a shelf.

There is also considerable pleasure in the period photography.

Animal books from the 1970s have a visual character of their own.

The lighting is softer.

The interiors are browner.

The fabrics are more adventurous.

And occasionally the cat is posing beside furniture so unmistakably 1975 that the entire image becomes a historical document.

That is one of the hidden pleasures of books like this.

They begin as books about animals.

Then enough time passes and suddenly they are also books about wallpaper.

The appeal of cats themselves, however, has not dated at all.

They remain mysterious, affectionate, aloof, playful, territorial and perfectly capable of demanding entry to a room they immediately wish to leave.

Science has advanced enormously.

This behaviour remains unresolved.

Portrait of Cats should appeal to cat lovers, collectors of vintage animal books, students of breed history and anyone who appreciates the curious fact that domestic cats have managed to become both household companions and minor deities without ever doing anything as undignified as applying for the position.

There is something especially reassuring about a 1970s cat book because the basic relationship has changed so little.

Humans still buy beds.

Cats still sleep in boxes.

Humans still choose names.

Cats still respond only when convenient.

Humans still believe they are in charge.

The arrangement continues successfully.

Condition: Good. A sound used copy with normal signs of age and handling. Published in 1975, it has now survived long enough for some of the décor in the photographs to become rarer than the cats.

ISBN: 0600371050.

A charming vintage celebration of cats in all their varieties, moods and states of complete indifference to human authority.

Sold by Crappy Old Books — where the books are owned by us, but the cats would dispute this.

Keep browsing: See more Animals books Other books by Angela Sayer