In 1875, Edwina Von Stetina, a young naturalist from London, unexpectedly inherited Mewingham Manor, the isolated country home of her seafaring uncle, Captain Bartholomew Katt. Edwina never met Katt - the black sheep of the family - but she heard many stories about the mysterious estate that he filled with exotic species collected in his travels. The journal is the remarkable chronicle of Edwina's first year at Mewingham Manor as she discovers the secret of Katt's lifetime work: the delightful miniature winged cats called Flittens, and their mischievous tagalongs, the tiny flying Mice. In the storyelling tradition of Gnomes and Dinotopia, a fantastic new world comes to life through Von Stetina's fanciful depiction of a never-before-seen species. Mewingham Manor is the fictional journal of Laura Von Stetina's fictitious great-aunt, Edwina. Laura grew up in the Ohio countryside writing stories about the secret lives of animals. She specialized in wildlife at the Cleveland Institute of Art and has exhibited at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Cleveland Museum of Art. She lives in Florida with her husband and seven cats, all of which were once strays.