Lady Jane

Lady Jane

Lady Jane is the most ferocious of all of Dickens’s cats. Owned by Krook, the rag-and-bottle shop owner, in this image she has leapt off a shelf onto her owner’s shoulders. Here, Dickens plays with the idea of cats as magical companions of wizards and witches, drawing out the otherworldly quality of Krook who later in the novel dies from spontaneous combustion.

‘Mr Krook and his cat’ by Harry Furniss from ‘Bleak House’, 1910. [Lib] 1044.11.