How a seemingly mad mission became one of the best-loved places in the world
Isobel Charman is an award-winning television producer. She has spent the last decade working in factual documentary production as a writer, researcher, producer and director and has worked on award-winning films for UK, European and US broadcasters. For The Zoo she has made unprecedented use of the vast archives at the Zoological Society of London. She lives in London.
Vivid, entertaining and scrupulously researched
*New York Times*
Fascinating ... nostalgia, social and natural history and the
ongoing need to change
*Chris Packham*
What an incredible story ... a charming and lovely read ... a
striking tale of discovery for the people involved and also for us
... you can give this book to anyone
*Jonathan Ross*
[A] vivid novelistic retelling . . . An impressive work of
imagination and research, as well as a pleasure to read
*The Guardian*
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'*
Terrific. Charman flings open the doors of a cabinet stuffed with
zoological and human curios, blows off the dust of a couple of
centuries, and talks us expertly and entrancingly through each
exhibit
*Charles Foster, author of 'Being a Beast'*
Delightful . . . Charman takes the story out of the cages and onto
the smoggy, sometimes riotous streets of Victorian London, up and
down the country and beyond its shores
*Nature*
As I always tell my students, if you wish to understand science you
need to understand the people involved in its development. Whilst
the animals in a zoo are rightfully the stars of the show - their
supporting human cast is no less fascinating and it is this that
Isobel Charman has so wonderfully captured in her book.
*Prof. Robert J. Young, Chair in Wildlife Conservation, University
of Salford*
She succeeds in personalising the story, bringing to life this
extraordinary episode in humankind's search for a better
understanding of the natural world
*Sunday Times*
The book's structure and style is that of a historical novel or
Victorian melodrama...it would all make a wonderful seven-part
historical costume drama
*Daily Express*
Charman possesses a proper historian's nose for a story and this is
a good one
*John Lewis Stempel*
Charming ... provides a fascinating Zoo's Who of the Victorian
naturalists and wildlife enthusiasts who established a 'Noah's Ark'
in the heart of the rackety capital
*Evening Standard*
Charman crafts an affecting narrative of the first 25 years of the
Zoological Society of London . . . The book is nuanced, often
entertaining, and also tragic
*Publishers Weekly*
[A] sprightly tale of the London Zoo from its conception in 1824 to
the death of its longtime president in 1851. As The Zoo engagingly
shows us, caring for and observing caged beasts transformed our
view of animals-and of ourselves
*Wall Street Journal*
Astonishing
*Daily Mail*
Deeply moving, fascinating and powerful
*Sunday Mirror on 'The Great War'*
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'*
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