Obaysch

Emeritus Professor John Simons is an historian specialising in the history of animals. He has written or edited twenty books, on topics ranging from Middle English chivalric romance to Andy Warhol to the history of cricket. His previous books on animals include Animal Rights and the Politics of Literary Representation (2002), Rosetti’s Wombat (2008), The Tiger That Swallowed the Boy: Exotic Animals in Victorian England (2012) and Kangaroo (2012), which was listed for the Royal Society of Biology’s Book of the Year Award. He is a published poet and has just completed his first novel. He has worked in universities on every continent except Antarctica and most recently was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at Macquarie University in Sydney.

"[This book] is over and above an accessible, intelligent, charming, sometimes funny, sometimes sad account of Obaysch, who lived at the London Zoo from 1850 until his premature death there in 1878, aged about 28."

• Preface and acknowledgementsA note on nomenclaturePrologue1. Why Obaysch?Interchapter: the economy of zoos and hippos2. The life and times of Obaysch the hippopotamus3. The several meanings of hippos4. A bloat of other European hippos Postscript: the unhappy hippopotamusPlatesWorks cited