Werewolves, magic cats and sex jokes: was this wild Christmas tale the first English novel?
Forget Scrooge and his gloomy ghosts – William Baldwin s 16th-century story is a hallucinatory mix of comedy, horror and religious fable
24 December 2020 • 6:00am
A lively cat in Il Sodoma s fresco cycle on the Life of St Benedict at Monte Oliveto Maggiore (1497-8)
Credit: De Agostini
Christmas is the perfect time to curl up with an old book – the older the better – so why settle for Dickens? Having weathered a mere 177 Yules, A Christmas Carol is a mewling kitten compared to William Baldwin’s Beware the Cat, which this year marks its 450th anniversary.