Robert Darnton

The Great Cat Massacre

In the Paris of the 1730s a group of printing apprentices tortured and ritually killed all the cats they could find – including the pet of their master’s wife. Why did this violent ritual cause them so much amusement? And what light does the story throw on the culture and society of eighteenth-century France?

Published July 31 1984

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Lords of the Northern Forest

The Hudson's Bay Company was one of the central forces moulding the development of the vast tracts of land that today are Canada - but as Barry Gough explains here, the circumstances of its launch in 1670 also reveal much about the commercial forces, personalities and rivalries of Restoration England.