Hearn was a great cat lover and throughout his life almost always kept several cats as pets. Today’s talk will introduce you to the surprisingly important roles t hat cats played in Hearn’s personal life and in his writings.
In the US, he wrote amusing newspaper articles and sketches about cats, and in Japan closely observed their behavior and published two sketches about Japanese cats. He was also fascinated by Japan’s cat folk-lore.
Moreover, remembering his own childhood misfortunes, he sometimes felt like a cat himself, a kitten without a mother to protect him from a brutal world.
Looking at Hearn through his life-long relationship to cats gives us a deeper understanding of who he really was.
