Hilda Kean is a tutor in Public History at Ruskin College, Oxford. Her research interest include family histories, animals, London and the suffrage movement.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-268) and index.

CONTENTS; PREFACE; 1 Radicals, Methodists and the law for animals in the streets; 2 Sight, spectacle and education: from Regent's Park zoo to Smithfield cattle market; 3 Continuity and change: fallen dogs and Victorian tales; 4 Bringing light into dark places: anti-vivisection and the animals of the home; 5 Dead animals: spectacle and food; 6 New century: new campaigns; 7 Greyfriars Bobby and Black Beauty go to war; 8 A meeting of the country and the town; 9 Continuing cruelty: unconcluded campaigns; REFERENCES; SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX.

In the early twenty-first century animals are news. Parliamentary debates, protests against fox hunting and television programmes like Animal hospital all focus on the way in which we treat animals and on what that says about our own humanity. As vegetarianism becomes ever more popular, and animal experimentation more controversial, it is time to trace the background to contemporary debates and to situate them in a broader historical context. Hilda Kean looks at the cultural and social role of animals from 1800 to the present at the way in which visual images and myths captured the popular imagiation and encouraged sympathy for animals and outrage at their exploitation.