The Zoo
  • Published: 3 November 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241975077
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368
Categories:

The Zoo

The Wild and Wonderful Tale of the Founding of London Zoo

Formats & editions
EBook
3 Nov 2016
Paperback
15 Jul 2017
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How a seemingly mad mission became one of the best-loved places in the world

The creation of a zoo in Dickensian London - when only one other existed across the world - is a story of jaw-dropping audacity. It is the story of trailblazing scientists, rival zookeepers and aristocratic naturalists collecting amazing animals from all four corners of the globe.

It is the story of a weird and wonderful oasis in the heart of a swirling city, and of incredible characters, both human and animal - from Stamford Raffles and Charles Darwin to Jenny the orang-utan and Obaysch the celebrity hippo, the first that anyone in Britain had ever seen.

Against a background of global Empire, domestic reform and industrialisation, this is a new history of a new world.
  • Published: 3 November 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241975077
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368
Categories:

About the author

Isobel Charman

Isobel Charman graduated from Bristol University in 2003 with a first-class degree and the George Hare Leonard prize in history. Since then she has worked in factual TV production in Berlin, Cornwall and London. She specialises in historical subjects, and has worked as a researcher, producer and director on award-winning films for TV and cinema. She did all the original research for The Great War: The People’s Story with support from the historians of Imperial War Museums, and from numerous librarians, archivists and families up and down the country. She also produced the series. This is her first book.

Also by Isobel Charman

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Praise for The Zoo

A rich, imaginative and original history, written with a film-maker's eye for detail, and starring a remarkable cast of characters. Short of asking the animals themselves, it's hard to think how this might be bettered

Dr Richard Barnett, author of 'Medical London'

Deeply moving, fascinating and powerful

Sunday Mirror on 'The Great War'
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