Day 4 - ZSL London Zoo (1877) – Javan Rhinoceros
Page count: 70 (including front cover, map and 5 pages of advertisments)
Photographs: None
Illustrations/diagrams: 20 illustrations throughout body of guidebook, plus several illustrations within advertisments
Layout: Comprehensive walkthrough account of collection.
Map: Included as part of body of guidebook
At the time of writing, this is the oldest UK guidebook in my collection by a fairly substantial margin, being the only 19th century item I own from the country; given the extreme rarity of those guidebooks released by London Zoo during the Victorian era, many of which are recorded in the master-list of UK guidebooks maintained by the Bartlett Society as having no known copies outside the ZSL library, it is one of the key cornerstones of my guidebook collection and one of the most valuable zoo-related items I own.
Many of the pre-WWII guidebooks issued by London Zoo contained a wide variety of advertisment material both prior to the main body of the text, and at the end of the text; this book is no exception, with adverts present for such products as "J. C. Eno's Fruit Salt", "Morson's Preparations of Pepsine" and "Epps' Breakfast Cocoa" along with promotion of various services and events in the London area; as such these guidebooks are a valuable snapshot not merely of zoo history, but also of social and commercial history.
However, of rather more relevance to the zoo historian - and any zoo enthusiast with an interest in the captive holding of now-extinct or critically endangered taxa - is the fact that this guidebook was released in the middle of a period where London Zoo was home to a vast array of species which have long-since been lost; at the time of publication, taxa such as Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, the Indochinese Rhinoceros and the Syrian Wild Ass were all to be found at the zoo, and the last Falkland Island Wolf at the collection had died a mere year previously, with species still-extant today but on the brink of extinction such as Javan Rhinoceros and the Sumatran Rhinoceros also occurring at this time. As such, a particular highlight of this guidebook is the following segment discussing the various rhinoceros holdings at the zoo:
The quality of the guidebook as a whole is extremely good, representing a walkthrough account of the zoo and describing the species present in each section of the collection, with copious numbers of high-quality illustrations of select taxa dotted throughout the text, and concludes with a brief overview of the Zoological Society of London and the terms, conditions and benefits attached to becoming a Fellow of the Society. The general layout of these guidebooks - although the content and precise format would change over the years - would remain fairly standardised until the mid-1930s, with the most notable change over the course of this time being the introduction of photographs. This, of course, is something that should be discussed properly another day - at the time this particular guidebook was issued, the only images present within were illustrations and no photographic material was included, as photographs from this timespan are few-and-far-between; the best source for such information is most certainly the two editions of London Zoo from Old Photographs 1852-1914 by John Edwards - a book I very much recommend any zoo enthusiast seriously interested in the history of London Zoo should track down with some alacrity!
One of the other key aspects of this guidebook, of course, is the presence of a fairly-detailed map of the collection, located in the opening pages prior to the main body of the text commencing - in my experience, the provision of attractive and useful maps within their guidebooks is something that London Zoo has always done a pretty good job of achieving, even if this particular map is very much skewed towards the functional rather than the artistic.
I am fairly certain that those reading this post will have questions aplenty about this particular guidebook, given the fact I have given the briefest and most superficial overview here - I look forward to any and all such enquiries, and will tackle them to the best of my ability!
Page count: 70 (including front cover, map and 5 pages of advertisments)
Photographs: None
Illustrations/diagrams: 20 illustrations throughout body of guidebook, plus several illustrations within advertisments
Layout: Comprehensive walkthrough account of collection.
Map: Included as part of body of guidebook
At the time of writing, this is the oldest UK guidebook in my collection by a fairly substantial margin, being the only 19th century item I own from the country; given the extreme rarity of those guidebooks released by London Zoo during the Victorian era, many of which are recorded in the master-list of UK guidebooks maintained by the Bartlett Society as having no known copies outside the ZSL library, it is one of the key cornerstones of my guidebook collection and one of the most valuable zoo-related items I own.
Many of the pre-WWII guidebooks issued by London Zoo contained a wide variety of advertisment material both prior to the main body of the text, and at the end of the text; this book is no exception, with adverts present for such products as "J. C. Eno's Fruit Salt", "Morson's Preparations of Pepsine" and "Epps' Breakfast Cocoa" along with promotion of various services and events in the London area; as such these guidebooks are a valuable snapshot not merely of zoo history, but also of social and commercial history.
However, of rather more relevance to the zoo historian - and any zoo enthusiast with an interest in the captive holding of now-extinct or critically endangered taxa - is the fact that this guidebook was released in the middle of a period where London Zoo was home to a vast array of species which have long-since been lost; at the time of publication, taxa such as Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, the Indochinese Rhinoceros and the Syrian Wild Ass were all to be found at the zoo, and the last Falkland Island Wolf at the collection had died a mere year previously, with species still-extant today but on the brink of extinction such as Javan Rhinoceros and the Sumatran Rhinoceros also occurring at this time. As such, a particular highlight of this guidebook is the following segment discussing the various rhinoceros holdings at the zoo:
The quality of the guidebook as a whole is extremely good, representing a walkthrough account of the zoo and describing the species present in each section of the collection, with copious numbers of high-quality illustrations of select taxa dotted throughout the text, and concludes with a brief overview of the Zoological Society of London and the terms, conditions and benefits attached to becoming a Fellow of the Society. The general layout of these guidebooks - although the content and precise format would change over the years - would remain fairly standardised until the mid-1930s, with the most notable change over the course of this time being the introduction of photographs. This, of course, is something that should be discussed properly another day - at the time this particular guidebook was issued, the only images present within were illustrations and no photographic material was included, as photographs from this timespan are few-and-far-between; the best source for such information is most certainly the two editions of London Zoo from Old Photographs 1852-1914 by John Edwards - a book I very much recommend any zoo enthusiast seriously interested in the history of London Zoo should track down with some alacrity!
One of the other key aspects of this guidebook, of course, is the presence of a fairly-detailed map of the collection, located in the opening pages prior to the main body of the text commencing - in my experience, the provision of attractive and useful maps within their guidebooks is something that London Zoo has always done a pretty good job of achieving, even if this particular map is very much skewed towards the functional rather than the artistic.
I am fairly certain that those reading this post will have questions aplenty about this particular guidebook, given the fact I have given the briefest and most superficial overview here - I look forward to any and all such enquiries, and will tackle them to the best of my ability!
